Reflection 91

Welcome!


Whatever Happens

Here’s a suggestion:

Sit down on your own for ten minutes with the sole purpose of being awake to Who you really are. Keep guiding your attention home to this undivided Capacity for your boundless view, this Silence for the limitless soundscape, this clear Absence that is Room for the edgeless world of body sensation. Whatever you find yourself thinking about, notice these thoughts are happening in your Spaciousness, in your No-Mind. That’s all you have to do. You don’t have to try and stop thinking for example, or try and feel peaceful, but simply be aware of being Space for the thinking process, or for whatever you are feeling. Attend to the Space and whatever is happening in it. As you do so, things will naturally reveal themselves, then dissolve. Just keep seeing that things unfold in the Space. It may happen that insights or understanding come to you. If this happens, observe these things too, occurring in the Space. See them arise, see them dissolve. Be aware of all of this happening there, as you look from the Mystery here. The Mystery that you are.

If the experience is a pleasant one, be aware of that feeling in the Space. Pleasant feeling there to its Absence here – two way attention. If it’s unpleasant – say you don’t like what you are feeling or are impatient for something different to happen – also notice this reaction in the Space. In fact, when difficult feelings appear it’s good news! Now you have the opportunity to see Who you really are in a more challenging situation. See there is no one here to be challenged. Feeling there to no-feeling here… Reaction there to no-reaction here – to no one here. World there to Capacity for the world here. Moment by moment, stay with the obvious and visible fact that you are not a thing at Centre but capacity. This experience of staying with the truth of Who you really are in a difficult situation will then help you if you experience something unpleasant at another time. You will know that you have the capacity and power to view it from the Space here, and to respond to it from the Space here.

It’s not a matter of trying to have any particular kind of experience but of noticing that whatever your experience is, you are viewing it from Awareness, from this boundless clear Space or Single Eye, from Freedom, from Peace.

Warm regards,
Richard


This meditation doesn’t preclude, and need not interfere with, any other kind of meditation – such as ‘sitting meditation’ or za-zen – which you may find helpful. What it does rule out is meditation which assumes the meditator isn’t already at Home. Douglas Harding


Please send your comments to Richard