The nondual recognition and realisation is a perpetual deepening - a continuous dance between what I have described previously as the self-confirming and self-revealing modes of engagement – that is, the modes through which reality appears to engage with itself.
As we deepen into the self as presence through the felt sense, we are constantly renewed with a simultaneous deepening and opening into the fabric of reality experiencing itself.
It was relatively recently, when I recognised with a greater sense of clarity, the nature of the minds’ activity in trying to find ground in the groundless through the creation of concepts. This overlay that we experience, of ‘thinking we know what this is’, creates an appearance of some form of architecture around which we can move and flow (relatively speaking), through which we create our world through the powers of perception. As this, we, awareness, become identified with (attached to) this story of ‘me’(in here) and ‘the world’ (out there). I feel a reluctance here to ‘personify’ thought as this is indeed, on the nondual exploration, that very illusion that we are revealing to itself – and yet I can’t help but express the sense of sweetness and compassion I felt for the mind, when I saw deeply that all concepts, as they were seen clearly to perpetually ‘bottom out’ in the movement of mind, were simply trying to create ground in the groundless. Attempting to create some kind of sense of location and understanding in the unlocated, totally unfathomable, perpetual here and now.
During this opening I was a giddy mess. I had been listening to Peter Brown (Teacher of The Yoga of Radiant Presence), and as I walked through the streets and the park with him in my ears, it was like being on the most fun and loving roller coaster. I did a lot of rolling around on the grass in the park that week, laughing, and skipping. That man gives you nothing to hang onto - no anchors whatsoever - and I was absolutely loving it. As I was experiencing at zero distance, the sensation of myself expressing as mind, constantly bottoming out through ideas about what this is, what’s going on here - the sense of this groundless, rock-solid reality of nothing, this pure potentiality, poured forth.
I was also feeling incredibly nauseated. I couldn’t locate myself and mind had given up in trying but was very disoriented. I felt such a sweetness and sense of compassion wave over me – for the experience of mind. It was so clear that all thought was simply an attempt to create some sense of safety in the experiencing of its infinite self.
I was still a giddy mess when I met with Nic in a Nondual Therapy/Mentoring session and was incredibly grateful to be in the space where I could express the awe, wonder, and unbridled joy that I was experiencing –
having spent the morning sliding up and down the kitchen floor in total amazement at the fact that I, am holding myself up with no idea of what I am, whilst simultaneously creating this absolute masterpiece of appearances, in which I get to play, with myself -it was lovely to be able to share with ‘someone else’ – who very clearly was not 'someone else' -
I also mentioned to Nic the nausea I was experiencing, and we recognised the nausea as an anchor or orienting principle to presence – this rock solid nothing that is reality.
“The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute.
The good news is, there’s no ground.”
- Chögyam Trungpa
This was it! The Sacred Safety that the mind so relentlessly and innocently seeks. Thank you, nausea - you are very welcome to hang around for as long as you like!
I had been noticing on the months run up to this opening that the movement of mind was going from an outward projecting, a sense of discomfort, and then a turning inward. The imagery that came up through the felt sense whenever this happened was like a young child with their arms out, reaching for a parent for comfort. The outward projecting quality was the going out to play (self-revealing mode), and the inward facing reach was the returning home for safety (self-confirming mode) – presence as the parent, mind was developing a secure attachment to the here and now, itself, this present moment.
I can’t begin to explain the empathy that I experienced in seeing this, and the ‘relationship’ I had with the experience of thought completely changed – not only did I deepen my recognition that all concepts are indeed illusory - that I have no idea what this is, but I know that it is - but thought was suddenly permeated by this deep permission to play safely as the game, deeply connected as the source of all creation, and that I Am That.
As a practitioner whose career and professional training has been largely focused on parenting and attachment, including working with parents and children therapeutically who are experiencing incredibly ‘disorganised’ and distressing patterns of relating, I developed a newfound sense of wonder and indeed, orientation, for expressing my work therapeutically. Reflecting also on my therapeutic relationship as client with Nic, I was steeped in deep gratitude for the provision that the space of the past two and half years of exploring with him had offered. I had, through the experiencing of humanity in the context of that which we are, re-parented to presence. Nic and the space as my ‘anchor’ or portal into the sacred safety of The Absolute and ultimately, the freedom to be myself.
And so, this is why I frame my work as I do. In deep empathy for the built architecture in mind, and a deeper knowing and understanding of the foundational needs for us in coming to an embodied and lived recognition of who and what we really are, as the home we never left.
POINTER:
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