eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781785352720 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Collective Ink |
| Publication date: | 02/26/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 112 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Too Simple for Words
Reflections on Non-Duality
By Graham Stew
John Hunt Publishing Ltd.
Copyright © 2015 Graham StewAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78535-272-0
CHAPTER 1
Just who do you think you are?
We all seem to have a good story to tell about ourselves ... the story of our life. It's a tale that has been refined and developed and nurtured for as long as we can remember. Our parents gave us a name, and from thereon we gained a sense of being a separate person. From about the age of two we sensed that the world 'out there' was an alien and potentially hostile place, and that our bodies were sources of pleasure and pain. Language developed and its dualistic nature emphasised the division between self and 'other'. 'Subject' and 'object' were born. Identity became increasingly important throughout our early school years ... the concepts of 'me' and 'mine' featuring more frequently in our contact with the world.
Along with name came gender, possessions, likes and dislikes, abilities and weaknesses ... the need to compare ourselves with others. All these reinforced the developing self-image ... the evolving personality. It is worth noting that the word personality is derived from the Greek 'persona', the megaphone-like mask worn by actors. It is this 'mask' of selfhood which we have worn and protected all our lives; this conceptual wall behind which we have sheltered and from which we have addressed the 'outside world'.
The message of this book is that this separation of the person from the world is essentially false ... our sense of self is a tragic mistake, and is the cause of all our problems. This message may not be apparent, and may also be resisted by the ego, the little self which desperately maintains its separateness in order to exist. Throughout this book I shall return to this basic question ... and invite you to investigate just who you think you really are.
When asked this question we often think of the story of our life, don't we? There is that television programme called Who Do You Think You Are? which consists of certain celebrities tracing their family trees back over many generations. This involves uncovering the dramatic, fascinating and often moving stories of their parents, grandparents, and so on. Is that all we are then ... a story that we tell ourselves (and others ... if they ask)? A collection of memories of events; a mixture of experiences, perceived as either positive or negative? A unique story of course, resulting in the personality you have today, with the blend of experiences, opinions and values, hopes and fears that mark you out as an individual. But ... just a story?
As a simple exercise can I suggest that you take a piece of paper and a pen, and ask yourself the question, "Who am I?" Now write down 20 answers to that question (or as many as you can manage).
Once you have finished look down through your list of answers. You may have mentioned your name, age, nationality and things like: sister/brother, daughter/son, wife/husband, job, religious or political affiliations, and so on. Now go through your list and cross out any answer that could possibly apply to someone else. That will certainly include answers like daughter/son, and may even include your name. What answer is left? Is there anything about 'you' that is unique? You have answered "me" or "my experience". Are you referring to that collection of memories and concepts which make up your sense of individuality? Isn't this the story of yourself referred to earlier? The story that I wish to explore in this book. In the pages to come I shall ask you to be resolute and uncompromising in searching out the truth about this story, its consequences and its implications.
Are you your body?
Let's take this investigation one step at a time, and use our intellect to explore these questions in a scientific and systematic manner. There will come a point when the mind can go no further into these matters, and we will recognise the limits of our intelligence (as well as the illusion of any belief system). Until then, let me guide you through a series of questions.
We normally talk of 'having' a body, rather than being a body. If you have a body, where do you situate yourself in relation to it? Where do you visualise yourself? Are you in your head? In the brain? Do you see yourself located in the heart? If you lose part of your body, for example through an amputation of a limb, are you less of a person? More than one limb? How much of your body could you lose and still remain essentially 'you'? When your hair or fingernails are cut, are you diminishing as a person?
Where do 'you' end, and the 'world outside' begin? When you breathe in, does the oxygen that enters your body become part of you? When you go to the toilet, does part of you get flushed away? When you eat a cheese sandwich is that now what you are? Are we not continuously exchanging elements, liquids and gases with our environment? The boundary between 'you' and the external world becomes increasingly blurred the more you investigate these questions.
The reality is that there is an interdependence between the world and our bodies ... one cannot exist without the other ... they arise mutually. Consisting of the four elements of earth, air, fire and water, all material things are continuously created and destroyed. Our bodies, value and protect them as we may, are no exception. Our bodies will age, become diseased, and die ... that is inescapable fact. It is an unpalatable fact for most people, who would rather not think about this, let alone discuss it. However, if we face these fears and look closely into them, the interdependence of all living things indicates that there is no real separation ... all differences and distinctions are imaginary ... the products of our minds.
Let me ask again ... are you your body? If you 'have' a body ... then it's obvious that you are other than a body. May I invite you to carry out another simple exercise? Close your eyes, and then ask yourself. "Where does my body end and the world begin?" Where are the boundaries between 'self' and 'other'? Take your time to really sense this boundary ... can you find it? Of course there are sensations coming from the body that you recognise as 'me' ... but actually where they are being sensed? Isn't there simply awareness of touch, sounds, smells ... input from all the senses ... being received in awareness? An infinitely empty awareness ... a still and vast spaciousness in which everything appears. Open your eyes, and visual stimuli flood into awareness ... and you start to watch the world 'out there'. But in fact isn't the world appearing in what you are ... the presence-awareness that you really are?
So we can say that we have a body – but do we have any control over it? The heart is beating, the stomach and intestines are digesting food, blood is circulating oxygen to the tissues, white blood cells are destroying harmful bacteria ... who does this? Don't these processes simply happen? If you think you are controlling any of these functions, then just try to stop breathing for five minutes! If we had control over our bodies, would we ever choose to catch a cold, or develop a disease, or even age and die? Is it not true that our body appears in our awareness, undergoes changes, and that these changes are witnessed by us. This witnessing is evidence that we are NOT our bodies; leaving us with the inevitable question: "If I am not my body ... then what or who am I?"
Let us keep exploring ... ever deeper.
Are you your sensations?
What are you aware of right now? Open up your awareness to all your five senses. Right now, what is happening?
Over here, there is awareness of –
Church bells; birdsong; bees humming; dogs barking ... hearing is happening.
Tea and toast ... tasting is happening.
Roses and chocolate cake ... smelling is happening.
The typing on the computer screen ... seeing is happening.
The warmth of the sun; the softness of the cushion in my back ... touching is happening.
'I' am not doing anything ... everything is just happening ... coming into awareness and passing away ... a natural flow of being.
So what is happening where 'you' are? Right now ... what is being sensed? Work through all five senses – hearing, smelling, tasting, seeing, touching ... note what is being sensed. Now notice that the space in which these things are happening is what 'you' truly are. That spacious awareness in which all these sensations are arising is what 'you' are. 'You' are not doing the seeing ... doing the hearing; seeing and hearing and everything else are just happening ... unfolding right now in that presence and awareness.
Notice also the continuous change of sensations. Nothing stays still ... all is changing. A continual arising and passing away of sensations ... and an awareness of these sensations. If you are this awareness, the sensations must be 'other' than you. So, are you your sensations?
Are you your thoughts and feelings?
It's the same with thoughts and feelings. What exactly are they? An individual might have up to 70,000 thoughts a day ... but where do they come from, and where do they go? Some thoughts may have an emotional 'charge' or flavour and we call these feelings or emotions; but are they different in nature from thoughts? Some thoughts are powerful and capture our attention immediately with an emotional 'kick', and then take us away on a mental journey ... on a train of thought. We arrive, sometimes minutes later, 'somewhere else' in our heads, not remembering how we got there ... such is the power of thought, if we give it the energy of our attention. What else is the mind apart from thoughts? The mind consists of ideas, concepts, perceptions, meanings, opinions, memories ... all mental activities covered by the term 'thinking'.
All of us can recall lying awake in bed at night wishing the mind had an 'off' switch, because thoughts were keeping us wide awake. Often these thoughts are accompanied by uncomfortable feelings – anxiety, depression, fear, anger and so on. There is no peace in the mind. Its nature is restlessness. The mind is a machine designed for thinking. As a problem-solver it is wonderfully useful ... we need it to earn our living, pay our bills, etc ... Without the mind, we would not have penicillin and the marvels of modern medicine. Neither would we have the nuclear bombs and poison gas. The mind has no inherent morality ... that is a human addition.
You may feel that you are your mind, and that you control your thoughts. If that were the case wouldn't you choose only to experience pleasant thoughts, and not have worries and negative emotions? Do you know what your next thought will be? If I were to ask you not to think about a blue table (for example) for five minutes ... could you? Isn't it true that you don't know what your next thought will be ... or where it comes from ... or where it goes? Perhaps thoughts are simply waves of electrical energy within the brain, which acts as some kind of transmitter/receiver? But that's just another thought too!
As a simple exercise, spend a few moments now quietly watching your thoughts ... just observe them arising and passing away. Focus attention on whatever appears, as if you are a cat watching a mouse hole. Note with interest whatever comes up, but then let it go ... don't get caught up in any sequence of thinking. You can certainly feed your thoughts by giving them attention; they then grow in force and often bring emotions and physical sensations with them. Just notice how fear or anger feels in your body if it arises. Note what's present now ... and now ... and again now.
Did you get a sense of the stream of thoughts that are continually arising? Were you able to simply watch them float by without getting tangled up with them? If you are aware of thoughts, you cannot be them, can you? That is logical isn't it? Being able to watch your thoughts means you must be other than them. You are the awareness in which thoughts and feelings arise and pass away ... just like all your sensations. The screen of awareness remains untouched by the sensations, thoughts and feelings projected upon it. That awareness is what you are.
In the midst of winter
the garden quiet and cold,
and a rose still smiling.
Waking, Dreaming and Dreamless Sleep
Traditionally, three states of being have been identified for all humans: waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep. Let's examine each of them in turn. We are all familiar with being awake ... or are we? Does this level of consciousness vary? Physiologically, consciousness does fluctuate, and is affected by such factors as fatigue, drugs, alcohol, mental illness and fever. Being aware, here and now, of what is arising in consciousness, and being able to function in the world, are characteristics of wakefulness.
We may be awake for two-thirds of our lives, but without sleep for the other third, we would not survive. Deprived of sleep, we become delirious, hallucinate, lose our sanity and die. Dreaming, or REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, can resemble the waking state remarkably. We sense, think and feel our way through all types of adventurous and dramatic dreams; the only difference is that we remain in our beds. We may dream that our house is on fire, but on waking in a sweaty panic, we realise immediately that we have been dreaming, and would not for a moment contemplate calling the fire brigade. Dreams are simply a different state of consciousness, still full of mental activity, yet not registering fully in our memory. Many people attribute special significance to dreams, and spend a great deal of energy in interpreting them. This is nonsense. The parade of thoughts, feelings and sensations in dreams has no more ultimate reality or meaning than our 'waking dreams'. They are simply phenomena arising and disappearing within awareness. Using the mind to try to understand the mind seems pointless and absurd.
It is dreamless sleep that is vital to our mental and physical health. In these periods of deep sleep, it is as if consciousness is on 'stand-by' for an unusual noise might wake us immediately. In dreamless sleep there is no recorded mental activity; the mind has shut down. Without the functioning of the mind, there is no perception of time or space ... there is nothing. It is this 'nothingness' that recharges us; paradoxically this emptiness fills us again. We are connected again to our Source. When we wake in the morning we know if we have had a restful night's sleep by the periods of 'absence' we have enjoyed. What bliss it is, when we are tired, to relax into the spacious emptiness that is our natural state! In letting go of our consciousness, we 'die' each night; so why should this relief be feared so much? For the ego, non-existence is the ultimate horror.
A December sky
Seagulls flying ... somewhere ...
Do they know?
Awareness
Right now, as you read these words, you ARE. Can you doubt this fact in any way? It is undeniable that 'you' (whatever that is) exist. There is aliveness, Being, and awareness. Even if you deny this fact, the very denial demonstrates that something is aware! We will explore the nature of that awareness later, but let's first accept the obvious fact that 'you' are aware. This awareness can be regarded as the screen or backdrop on which every sensation, thought and feeling is projected. Like the TV or cinema screen which remains untouched by whatever is projected upon it, this awareness is the empty potential or possibility for whatever arises. A TV screen can contain and convey all types of scenes ... tragic, comic, exciting, dull ... but its actual nature never changes. Once the programmes have ceased transmission, the screen remains ... empty and silent (as in deep sleep).
Everything appears in this awareness ... all objects, ideas, concepts, and perceptions. They arise, appear on the screen of awareness, and then disappear. We don't know where they came from, and we don't know where they go. We can't tell what our next thought or sensation is going to be, so the assumption of being in control of our minds requires a closer look. Thoughts arise and pass away ... thinking happens ... without the need for a 'thinker'. Awareness (which is what we reallyare) accepts everything without discrimination or judgment. Whatever phenomena arise make no impression on awareness and they all pass away. Nothing stays the same ... everything changes – except Awareness, which is timeless and without characteristics of any kind. Anything that can be said about awareness is conceptual, and only appears on the screen of this consciousness as a passing thought. Awareness is non-conceptual, and therefore cannot be defined, described, or known. Consequently, the mind (which arises in awareness) will never comprehend awareness (which contains the mind). Conceptual thinking can neither apprehend nor comprehend the non-conceptual.
The world is a verb.
There are no nouns ... no objects.
The world is 'worlding'.
Trees are 'treeing' ... birds are 'birding'
People are 'peopling'
The Self is 'Selfing'.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Too Simple for Words by Graham Stew. Copyright © 2015 Graham Stew. Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword,Just who do you think you are?,
Waking, Dreaming and Dreamless Sleep,
Awareness,
Duality,
Suffering and Happiness,
Time and Space,
Death,
Knowledge and Reality,
A Dialogue,
A Break from Dialogue,
A Brief Chat,
Floating,
Awareness Training,
Visitors,
Is there a Way?,