Self-expression

Has it ever occurred to you how odd it is that a non-dual Buddhist meditation should start with preliminary mindfulness practices that intentionally create a gap between the observer - ourselves - and what we observe. Essentially making a very strong dualistic separation?

This seeming contradiction emerged in our small Buddhist meditation group this evening when one person described how they used writing to give expression to the thoughts and emotions that they felt, finding by doing so that a process was worked through and some understanding found. But was this the same as the practice of being present with the emotions felt in the body? Being mindfully present with the felt sense?

My response was that there was some similarity and some difference. Both were similar in that both enabled a stepping back from identification with the emotions. But the former, writing it all down, seemed to me to have an element of self-expression within it and because of this a continuing involvement in ones personal narrative. So yes, some stepping back to enable cognitive reflection but still an active engagement with a sense of self involved in its own unfolding journey. This I suggested was different (not better nor worse) from what we were exploring. When we practice mindfulness of the felt sense the ultimate purpose is to recognise its emptiness. By being present with the sensations of the emotions felt in our body, allowing and accepting whatever we find, not attempting to change or end what we experience, neither identifying nor cutting off, it becomes apparent that everything, including the most painful emotions, are impermanent. They arise and when not fed by further thought, left entirely alone, they can be observed to dissolve.

This returns us to the original problem. Practicing mindfulness of my emotions in the way described here entirely depends on the ability to stand back and observe what I am thinking and feeling, effectively enhancing the dualism. From the perspective of non-dual Buddhist teachings this is a necessary step but is still not the final destination because from the non-dual perspective, there remains the felt belief that we are a seperate entity existing in relationship to other things. The belief that is considered the fundamental delusion that is at the root of all dissatisfaction and unhappiness. It is ignorance of the empty nature of reality.

So here comes the rub. Having gone to all that effort to create a mindful gap between me and my objects of mindfulness, I next have to dissolve it and remove the gap. For most of us, when we first hear this it just sounds mad and confusing. How is this different from simply being swallowed up in my thoughts and emotions again? Here the answer is that resting in a state of non-dual awareness is fundamentally different from being unconsciously identified and caught up within the stream of memories and fantasies that make up the bulk of a distracted mind. Though almost impossible to describe, when resting in non-dual awareness there is a sense of spaciousness in which both the observer and what is observed are experientially known to be nothing other than awareness itself. This is why it is called ‘non-dual’. Like the sea and its waves, they are not two different things.

So what about self-expression in this state of non-dual awareness - is it a state with no emotions, or for that matter thoughts? No. Within this basic space of awareness everything continues to arise - emotions and thoughts. But the division between a sense of me and the emotions I experience is replaced by an virtually indescribable spaciousness in which thoughts are no longer identified with and as a consequence, like waves on the sea, simply arise and then dissolve back into the sea of awareness itself. They just do it of their own accord. Something that the tradition calls ‘self-liberation’ because it requires no effort from the practitioner at all. It does it itself, it just happens so there is no dualism.

NW. 4 October 2023