Awareness without an Object

 During the group practice last night, Venerable GuoXing talked about ignorance as being the fundamental belief that awareness requires an object. All too often, I listen to this sentence without fully understanding it. I almost want to analyze it for its essence, because it seems very mysterious: how did awareness get to believe that it needs an object to "exist"? And how, in turn, does this cause the cycle of ignorance?

   The problem, as I understand it, is that awareness might be a bit like a movie screen that temporarily forgets that all the images projected upon it are not real. Imagine this movie screen that is fully aware of its nature as "that which projects images". The movie screen is fully aware of the images as images, and is attuned to the way that, in spite of the diversity of the images seeming to come and go, in fact the screen itself remains essentially the same throughout the process. In other words, even if one image is of a "good" person while the other is of an evil demon or killer, the screen remains unaffected, because the essence is the same--the appearances are fundamentally the same as well. 

    So, in the midst of all this, the movie screen somehow gets enthralled in the drama, and starts to become extremely involved in what the images seem to be doing to each other. I wonder if you have ever had those cartoon books as a child where you continually flipped the pages until you saw images appear to "move"? Well, it's for sure something like this: I am thinking that there are moving images because I compare the position of one image to the other. My mind links these images into a continuous storied movement, and this is what causes these images to appear to be continuous and permanent, when in fact they disappear just as instantly as they arose. These images are literally just "instants" that are supplanted by other instants, without a sense of time shifting or moving.

  To become enthralled is to start to believe that the movie screen is part of the unfolding images. It sees itself as a character, or takes the side of one identity among others, and sees itself as one against the others, not realizing that it is the entire screen. I like this, I don't like that--I get this, I don't get that, etc. And all because we identify with one "perspective" within the screen rather than simply realizing that all these impressions are instances of the very same awareness. At this point, the screen becomes so forgetful of itself that it identifies completely with the moving images and starts to create things out of it: habitual ways of directing experience so that the portion it identifies with gets to win, or be on top, or survive to live to the next sequel, and so on.

  Something to contemplate: how can we go back to our original nature as the screen? Perhaps there is no going back at all--because in fact trying to "go back" to something original would be like imagining there is an object called a screen, when in fact the screen is just our total awareness in the moment, and so it cannot really be objectified. And this is awareness without an object. Can we just be without an object even for a moment? I dare you to try!

Creature-liness

   I once heard the expression "creaturely" to describe that which is created--usually an animal, since we don't normally refer to humans as "creatures". But the creaturely entails a creator, and I think that it evokes the idea that even when we are not actively creating conditions, we still belong in the universe. We all have a special spirit and place.

Just today, I was sitting on a park bench before the U of T group meditation, quite occupied with a recent change in position at my work--wondering whether things will work out and whether I made the right decision in accepting the new position. Just as I was lost in deep thought (though not very constructive--more rationalizing to myself), I heard this kind of distinct crunching sound, which actually reminded me of the days when I had a pet rabbit and it ate a lot of grass while I was sleeping at night. When I turned around, I indeed saw a very large grey rabbit in the bushes feeding contentedly on this large grass that looked like green onion. For a moment, I wondered if the rabbit had been a stray pet, or perhaps had even escaped from a science lab near the University of Toronto, but then it also dawned on me that the campus would be a safe haven for such animals, since there are no predators around, and students are certainly pacifists for the most part!

My relationship to the animal world: it's often been the case that when I am lost in thought or have some mental entanglement, an animal of some kind will appear to me from somewhere, reminding me of many things. Firstly, animals don't seem to fuss the way humans do. They eat when they need to, keep out of trouble for the most part, and probably don't think a lot about personal success or failure. Secondly, animals remind me that we are all just temporary guests in this world. I don't know where this rabbit will go in the cold wintertime, and perhaps it doesn't either, but an animal functions in a way that it is completely present with what is, and there is no assumption of tomorrow. Thirdly, the animal world reminds me of belonging. An animal simply does not need to compare itself to others or worry about things like identity, purpose, salary and the like. Humans certainly have to do so, but sometimes it's at the expense of their own humanity that they will get caught up in things that are actually quite fleeting. 

At the end of the day, we are all subject to our biology or our karma, and for this reason we sometimes have to make our hearts simpler and more pure--perhaps less grasping. I think animals truly are spirit beings that have a great value to humans, and we should always protect the animal world at every cost. This is not only because they teach us so many things about ourselves, but also because they teach us about the intrinsic value and worth of all life.

Reframing Others

 I have been reflecting recently about how cognitive reframing can be used as a tool to foster greater empathy and compassion.  When we normally think of cognitive reframing, we often think about being able to reframe our own personal situations in positive ways so that our moods or mental attitudes might improve. For instance, I might reframe a negative event as something that has positive repercussions, such as when I decide to be grateful for a challenge or reframe a failure as one more step toward success. Yet, what would it be like if we could reframe the actions of those around us in more positive and empathic ways? How could that potentially impact our daily lives?

   One example might be how seeing someone cut someone else off in traffic might be framed as a form of disrespect, on the one hand, or possibly a sign that the other person is in a rush to get somewhere. The former kind of framing sees the other's behavior as somehow intentionally designed to hurt or frustrate someone else. On the other hand, perhaps, when we think deeply about it, nobody's behavior is ever really that intentional. Often, people do things because they are agitated or preoccupied about something. In other words, whatever happens really has little to do with the person one is cutting off and so on. This requires some insight and imagination, indeed, but perhaps it also requires a realization that seeing others in a negative light is not constructive, and it often simply ends up making the evaluator of the situation more unhappy than the other person! 

I think the key to reframing others is simply to take oneself out of the picture. When I can appreciate another just like a work of art--as someone that is inherently valuable, without my own involvement or stake in it--then that person is appreciated as unique and special, someone who has just as much as reason to live as anyone else. Now,  think that what this also requires is the ability to be actively curious but even this is something that can be cultivated as a habit over time.

But in order for all this reframing to work, perhaps there needs to be a deeper sense of interconnection that can only happen when I contemplate how all beings are in constant interrelation and transition. When I am not treating my own mental constructions as a be-all/end all--let alone as "final interpretation"--then conversation itself (and even empathy) can be a much more playful process that does not require a definitive view on someone or something. It therefore becomes more of a process of creation in the spontaneous moment, as opposed to discovering some incontrovertible truth.

Reflections on Water

  Recently I have been thinking about how the mind is like water: it moves and stirs according to the conditions that affect it, but its essence truly does not change. What attitude should we take as a result of this realization? What attitude retains such thinking? While walking to the Multifaith center today, I considered how even a little bit of an attitude of striving for something can tear one away from this water mentality. The mind becomes quite tired, in fact, when it is always thinking there is a right or wrong answer to this question. Again and again, I come back to the principle that perhaps instead of "letting go" we should be saying something like "falling back", because anything we think is going to fall short of the mark.

   Put it in another way. Does water discriminate against the reflections-liking one thing and ignoring another or disliking something else? Water stirs and accommodates the reflections evenly: it acts in accordance with what is, in other words. There is a funny motif about this, and that is regarding how vampires in horror movies can't see their own reflection. The fact that they can't means that they are not quite human or are verging on ghost like. But the mind does not say there is one realm that is better than the other. But time and again, I find myself discriminating and getting stirred up: somehow in even a subtlest way believing that there is something to retain, when the nature of water itself is purely reflective: it lets go even before we can hold onto it. This does not mean that we should not practice, but I think what it means is that we should know what we are practicing.

   Another analogy: someone gives me something to hold, then another, then a third person gives me a third thing, when I only have two hands. I pile and pile it up, only to realize that all the things I am carrying are the same: they are just different shapes and sizes related to the same fundamental substance. The hand making a fist or spread out is still a hand, just different appearances or forms. As soon as I prefer one, strive to hold onto another, then another and this and that, I become entangled, burdened and somehow responsible for all this. But what if I could just experience that all this is the same, and what if my ethics were just like a water-based ethic? Then I would not worry about even my own appearance, because I would know that all reflections are ephemeral, they come together and disappear as soon as they arise.