What I’m presenting here is only for your consideration. You don’t have to agree with it.
For all of us, existence is only the feeling of this moment occurring, right now. We don’t have any other experience of life, only the feeling of this moment happening.
You don’t have to create the feeling that something is happening now; it already feels like this moment is happening.
If we sit quietly, away from all other activities, and make no effort to do anything, the feeling of this moment happening will make itself obvious, and it will also become obvious that everything in this happening is moving, shifting, and changing.
You don’t have to observe this moment or cultivate any special awareness. It already feels like this moment is happening, so merely sit down, or lie down, and rest; making no effort at all, and let this happening present whatever it presents.
While sitting quietly, or lying quietly, everything in this moment will happen on its own. This happening that we usually call seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling, and thinking, will occur automatically, making itself obvious.
What we call “breath” comes and goes; the “heart” beats; what we call “sounds” arise and fade away. There are pulsations, vibrations, waves of energy, tingling, fluctuations of heat and cold, tightness, looseness, heaviness and lightness. There is a little twinge here, a little twinge there; a little pain here, a little pain there; a little shift here, a little shift there; and pain either fades away or builds.
Thoughts arise and pass; moods arise and pass. There are sensations of restlessness and calm. One moment, breath makes itself obvious, then sound, then vibration, then warmth, then seeing, then heaviness, and so on.
Urges to move will come and go; some become actions, others do not, and, eventually, there will be an irresistible urge to get up and do something else.
There are only two important things to acknowledge in all of this. First, everything is happening on its own, without us “doing” it. And second, it is a moving, shifting, event that has no particular form. Everything is changing. It is a formless functioning, functioning on its own.
Everything you feel is you is simply a mysterious movement presenting itself. There is no “you” that is making any of this happen.
When we get the urge to stop sitting quietly, and become active in our day, dealing with various people, things, and situations, we can consider whether all of that is also changing.
Sights, sounds, touches, tastes, smells, and thoughts are always shifting. Our activities are also shifting, because that’s what it means to be active. The various urges to do this and that simply arise, and the various situations they provoke come and go.
All the people we encounter are changing in their thoughts, words, and actions. Bodies are moving here and there, changing their activities, moved by the urges that arise and pass in their process.
Bodies are also growing older, in each moment, with some of them dying and fading away. Eyes, ears, bodies, tongues, noses, and brains, grow older in each moment and will eventually cease to exist.
There are large objects that don’t seem to be changing, like houses and mountains, but if we consider them closely, we discover that we don’t have the feeling they are staying the same from moment to moment.
We feel that houses and mountains are growing older. A house will eventually fall apart, if it is abandoned; it will rot and turn to dust. Dramatic mountain ranges, like the Rocky Mountains, will eventually wear down to become rolling hills or flat land.
We don’t have the feeling that houses and mountains remain the same for hundreds, or thousands, of years and then grow old and fade away overnight. We have the feeling that they are changing in subtle ways, right now.
A mountain, or a house, is changing in millions of tiny ways, in each moment. It is not the same mountain, or house, from moment to moment. The Himalayas are changing shape and growing roughly one inch every year. They’re a movement, occurring on its own. They’re moving, shifting, and changing very slowly, but they’re moving in each moment.
Astronomers tell us that the universe is expanding, galaxies are spiraling, and planets are rotating. It’s interesting that the word universe literally means undivided turning (undivided movement).
In certain portions of the universe, new planets, stars, and galaxies are forming, while others are growing older, and some are blipping out of existence. All of this is happening without anyone doing it.
The planet earth is changing, from moment to moment; the weather shifts, seasons change, the physical surface alters; it sometimes moves and crumbles; the planet grows older, and, at some point, it will cease to exist.
No one is making any of this happen. Everything is moving, shifting, and changing on its own. Some aspects change slowly and some change quickly, but everything is changing.
Physicists tell us that everything is made up of tiny particles that they call atoms and molecules. They also tell us that atoms and molecules aren’t really objects; they’re like little clouds that are moving, shifting, and changing all of the time.
Scientists can’t find stable objects of any kind; they only find movement. As they probe deeper, attempting to discover what existence fundamentally is, all they find are waves of movement; they don’t find “objects”. They label this movement energy.
Einstein expressed this very clearly, in his simple statements.
“The ancients knew something, which we seem to have forgotten.
There is no matter.
What we have called matter is energy … Matter is spirit.
Physical concepts are creations of the human mind [thinking].
Everything is energy and that is all there is to it.
This is not philosophy. This is physics.
Our separation from each other is an optical illusion.
Everything is energy.
I do not believe in free will.
We all dance to a mysterious tune.
I cannot understand what people mean when they talk about the freedom of human will. I have the feeling, for instance, that I will [myself] to light my pipe and I do it; but how can I connect this with the idea of freedom? … As Schopenhauer said, ‘A man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he’s going to will.’ [He can do what he wants, but he can’t create his wants]
If we look at the forces that drive us to act, we can see that we all dance to a mysterious tune, and the piper… whatever name we give … Creative Force or God —- escapes all book knowledge [all descriptions].
I have only one purpose: to fulfill my purpose.
This purpose is … induced by unknown factors.
Behind everything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp.
I didn’t arrive at my understanding … through my rational mind.
I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.
I claim credit for nothing.”
To put it simply, Einstein was saying that everything, including his own process, is a mysterious movement, moving on its own, and he called that movement energy.
But, as he stated, his view was a scientific one, not philosophical, so we need to acknowledge that certain philosophers go much deeper than scientists in their acknowledgment; they ultimately stay away from any description, or label, and declare that what “is” has no actual form to describe and no true name.
Great philosophers, like Ashtavakra, Heraclitus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Jesus of Nazareth, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and myriad others, throughout the ages, have agreed, and continue to agree, that there is only a formless functioning, functioning on its own.
It’s beyond any true description, so they refer to it as a happening, a great spirit, an unformed ocean, a mysterious flowing. Some say it’s only un-form.
Some will rattle off a long list of what this unformed happening is not. Their list of “nots” is a list of all the “things” we normally describe and they say that existence is not really any of those things, because it is movement only; it has no actual form to be described. It appears to have form, but, if it is examined closely, it is only movement, flow, or action, without form.
Words like movement, flow, and action, aren’t attempting to describe anything; they simply point to this formless occurrence.
The Heart Sutra, of Buddhism, states that any identifiable form is a movement that is empty of form, so descriptions of form can’t be the truth.
It can’t be seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling, and thinking. It can’t be sights, sounds, touches, tastes, smells, and thoughts. It can’t be eyes, ears, noses, tongues, bodies, and brains. It can’t be a self or a world. It can’t be a body or a mind. It’s a mysterious, unformed, occurrence that is void of form.
In other places, it’s stated that it’s also not not-a-body and not not-a-mind, that even those descriptions can’t apply to what is.
The Buddha stated it most succinctly, when he said that no description of any kind can really apply to what “is”.
In his recorded teachings, found in the Pali Canon and the Chinese Agamas, he stated there is a basic happening that is not a solid or a liquid; it is not air, space, consciousness, perception or non-perception; not a present world or some other world; not a moon or a sun; not a coming or a going; not a process of dying and reappearance. It has no fundamental substance [no form], no evolution [there’s no form to evolve], and no hidden substructure.
He stated that realising this puts an end to all confusion and suffering. It puts an end to belief in ideas of a body and consciousness. It puts an end to belief in ideas of a self existing now, or in the future. It puts an end to belief in any description. He said it’s like being released from debt, disease, prison and bondage and one then lives as the immeasurable, the naturally untroubled flow of the unformed.
In the Ashtavakra Gita, one of the main texts of Advaita Vedanta, they give a much longer list of what this happening is not. It begins by stating that a knower, a knowing, and anything known, do not exist, that we are the reality in which they only appear to exist.
Ashtavakra goes on to state that what actually “is” is like an ocean that is moving and shifting, and the appearances of different forms are simply waves flowing in this ocean of movement.
He emphasized that it doesn’t matter if various forms appear to move here and there, because, on close examination, this great movement has no actual form.
He explicitly declares that the only cure for these false appearances of form is to simply realise they are false appearances.
If this is realised, then what remains is the unformed happening of this moment, and it can’t really be described or understood.
Even our thinking process is an unexplainable movement, moving on its own. We were taught to call it thinking, but there is no way to say what it really is.
The Ashtavakra Gita goes on to state that realising this ocean of movement frees us from ideas of “me” and “mine” and the idea that actions are caused by a “self”.
It states that one who realises this realises they are not making anything happen, so they live with whatever happening is presenting itself.
It’s goes on to say that, for anyone who realises that descriptions are false, there is no sleeping when sleeping, no dreaming when dreaming, and no waking when waking. These descriptions are not true.
There are also no thoughts when thinking, no understanding when understanding, and no responsible actions when being responsible.
There is no self or non-self, no past, present, or future, no space. No life, no death, no worlds, no things, no elements, no body, no mental faculties, no mind, no consciousness, no duality and nonduality. The list goes on much longer, but it’s not necessary to mention all of it here.
At one point, Ashtavakra exclaims, “How can what is happening possibly be described?”
Focusing intently, on the fact that everything is only unexplainable movement, may feel a bit distressing. It may give the impression that everything is chaotic and bleak, but this isn’t true.
If we look at the way existence expresses itself, we see that everything moves to some kind of creative order that is miraculous in its constant transformation.
Plants, animals, and people, simply grow to reach their full potential. Each apparent flower blooms in its unique way and each apparent person blooms in their unique way.
There is an inherent urge in the universe for all apparent things to reach their full, and unique, potential. Even though it’s not possible to know ahead of time what that full potential will be.
We can see that a young sparrow doesn’t grow to become a blue jay and a young daisy doesn’t become a marigold. In any moment, everything unfolds in its own way.
We simply become what we are and do what we do, in each moment, because we aren’t making ourselves happen. We are a miraculous movement, moving to a mysteriously creative order.
So … what does all of this mean to our day-to-day existence?
It’s very simple. We can never truly say what life is or what we are. It’s a formless functioning, with an urge to be exactly what it is, in each moment.
There is no “self” that is making any of this happen.
In any moment, just be the unexplainable happening that you are and do what you feel you need to do. You aren’t creating any of this; it simply presents itself in each moment.
If your direction isn’t clear, sit down somewhere quiet and simply rest. Your immediate concerns will come up and, eventually, an irresistible urge to do something in particular will present itself.
Like birds on their migration routes, we all move in the direction we are compelled to move. And like the many different birds, each of us will fly in our own unique direction.
There are many who will read these statements and feel they point to life as it actually is. They will get excited about these ideas and will want to spend hours, days, weeks, and months, reading, thinking and talking about them.
But, ironically, the more one focuses on ideas and explanations, in reading, thinking, and talking, the less clear it becomes that everything is unexplainable movement, moving on its own.
It only becomes clear when we sit down, or lie down, making no effort to do anything, and simply feel this unexplainable happening, happening.
I can already hear some people shouting “But we have to think. Don’t tell us to stop thinking!” Which, of course, is not what I’m saying. I’ve already pointed out that our thinking is an unexplainable movement that is moving on its own. And you’ll discover that fact, if you simply rest and feel it happening on its own.
In simply feeling the unexplainable happening of this moment occurring, feeling the happening that we are, happening on its own, perhaps the focus can come off the tangled, angst-ridden, confusion of our thoughts and storylines, and the simple miracle, and wonder, of a formless functioning can be realised and enjoyed.
There is only the feeling of this moment occurring, miraculously becoming what it becomes in each moment. Just this one great spirit … moving, shifting, and dancing.
Fin Agains Wake
(condensed from 628 pages)
The arising and passing
of finite forms,
again and again,
is only
formless flowing,
like ripples
in a river,
the river Life-y.
But we all dwell
in Doubling Town,
mentally dividing,
and sub-dividing,
this one great spirit,
a simple flow,
into fantasies
of sturm and drang,
and mausoleums
of willing done,
when all the while,
it’s merely
fin agains waking,
along
a riverrun.