Spoiler Alert: You Do Not Exist

Spoiler Alert: You Do Not Exist

By Stephen

 

I would like to start this article gently, but the truth is. No matter how I put this, it will seem odd. No matter how I say this, it will rub someone up the wrong way. No matter how delicately I handle this it, will challenge the foundations of your entire life.

If moving towards the truth is not what you want. If breaking free of the ties that have bound your life. If a rejection of the very reason you are here now, searching for freedom is not what you are after, stop reading now.

I’ll assume whoever is left only wants one thing: the cold and ruthless truth. Now to dispense with the pleasantries…

You do not exist.

What? How? Why?

I could explain logically that for self to exist it must be outside of reality-manipulating reality, and that anything outside of reality is unreal.

I could tell you that all you have ever had of your self is your thoughts about it. Just as your thoughts about unicorns do not mean unicorns are real, your thoughts about yourself are nothing more than thoughts.

We could delve into the many linguistic errors in this piece and ask “if you don’t exist why do you use the word ‘I’ so much”. I know, as you now know, that use of a word does not prove the existence of its namesake. We must simply do our best with the limited “selfish” language we were given.

I do not expect you to believe me

In fact I don’t want belief. I want you to discover it for yourself that you have no self (clever, eh?).

I’d like to offer that all we really know for sure is what we are experiencing right now. Memory is fallible, the past and future never come or go. All we can know is our direct experience of what is in the present moment.

With that in mind, I want you to pay direct attention to your experience of life right now.

Take a look at this self, which thinks your thoughts and moves your body. If it truly thinks your thoughts then it must exist apart from those thoughts. Pay attention to your experience; do you experience this self outside of thought?

Sure you have thoughts about the self, but look at experience, do those thoughts come from a self?

More importantly what are each of those thoughts DOING ? Are they trying to convince that there is a self?

I resisted this at first too

The first thing I thought when I tried this was “Of course there is a self, this is stupid.” However as I watched, I realized that all my thoughts were about a self, but there was no self thinking up the thoughts.
I began to rationalize that I must be the brain because the brain thinks up the thoughts, but it hit me hard between the eyes. I don’t experience the brain thinking up thoughts.
I just experience thoughts arising conditioned by experience. It wasn’t my experience, I wasn’t there thinking the thoughts. There was only experience conditioned thoughts.

Sure there was a body and a mind, but the driver seat was empty. Life was automatic. As I looked around the room I sat in, the haze began to lift. My entire world fell apart. Only, it wasn’t my world and had never been. My whole life made sense, because it was never truly my life.

How has this affected me?

It’s an intense and real freedom, this liberation from erroneous assumption of self. From the time from the thought first entered my head, till my taking a look at the experience of life in that moment was roughly 7 minutes.

In mid September 2010 I saw life for what it is. It’s changed me for the better since. I can see clearly now. I tend not to get caught in emotional feedback loops and the idea of self. I still have it I just see that I have it, and see it for what it is.

Since I got this I’ve dedicated my life to bringing this to other people. I’ve been taking a little break but over the first 6 months I liberated 13 people . I have many friends who also pledged themselves to free this world. It’s hasn’t been easy there have been many ups and downs. We’ve stared into the abyss together and watched the brightest of stars fall from grace. What we do now we do with eyes open, and what we do is open eyes.

All it took was 7 minutes. I’ve seen people do it in 3. All you need to do is to pay attention to your experience of life. Just look.

Look Into Your Mind

By Charles

“Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.”

- Alan Watts

I am a guest here, so I’ll start with this.  The mission of HighExistence says the site aims to…

-Compel you to follow your bliss & make a life (not a career)
-Provide a medium for freethinking individuals to connect & discuss
-Question anything & everything that is considered ‘normal’
-Explore all aspects of the human condition
-Promote the general spread of happiness

When I first started learning about Zen Buddhist philosophy, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you whether or not it encompassed all of these things.  Now, I definitely can.  My goal in this post isn’t to act as some sort of New Age Zen evangelist or claim that Zen practice will solve all your problems or instantly help you achieve the goals aforementioned.  But it will help you out.

Why?  Well, to start, here’s what we’re working with when it comes to ‘tenets’ with Zen.  These are the highest-valued qualities:

• Mindfulness (always being in the here-and-now)
• Compassion (generally being a nice, open person)
• Honesty (both to others, and also to yourself)
• Health (exercise, good food, and genuine relationships)

Zen values experience over intellectualization; while it’s of high importance to learn, read books, and read stuff like this, you mostly need to get off your ass and really exist!  If you follow Zen practice at its core, you treat every experience as an exercise in mindfulness and as its own meditation.  Every activity flows naturally, and we don’t force our opinions of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ on anything.  One of my favorite High Existence posts is this one because it outlines Zen philosophy in two words:  resist nothing.

Your happiness, freedom, and understanding of the mind– these all rely on your ability to not resist.  If something ‘bad’ happens, take it as it comes.  If something ‘good’ happens, do the same.  There’s an old Zen story, or, as it’s officially called ‘koan’ which called the Fable of the Zen Master.

Zen practice involves questioning everything, because, after meditating and cultivating mindfulness for long enough, you start to realize that everything can be questioned.  It’s remarkable how much BS usually pervades the mind of the person modern society views as ‘normal’ or ‘well-adjusted’.  Try instead to be more like the Zen master.

Historically, people have worked on doing this in various ways.  Many have used meditation, many have used yoga, and many have used psychedelic drugs.  I could write a meditation guide into this post, but I don’t want it to drag on. If you’re interested, read the beginner’s guide on my site.

While strict Zen ideology values the natural authenticity of meditation over psychedelic experience, these substances have been known to aid in the process of experiencing mindfulness and exploring the mind.  I only mention psychedelics here because, in time spent reading Zen philosophy, I’ve found many parallels with philosophers who’ve implemented psychedelics into the quest for enlightenment.  Terence McKenna, a brilliant psychedelic philosopher, said this:

“We have been to the moon, we have charted the depths of the ocean and the heart of the atom, but we have a fear of looking inward to ourselves because we sense that is where all the contradictions flow together.”

Don’t fear your own mind.  Respect it, but don’t fear it.  There’s a Zen proverb:  ”Be a master of mind, not mastered by mind.”  Work to master your mind, by whatever means you discover work best for you, and you’ll have taken a huge step in achieving ‘the mission’.

Authority, tradition, strict ideology– none of these are really worth your time. What is worth your time is direct experience of the here and now, which can be achieved through Zen practice.  Explore it and enjoy it.

From High Existence @ http://www.highexistence.com/spoiler-alert-you-do-not-exist and http://www.highexistence.com/look-into-your-mind/


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Special Transmission 1: Total transformation is an eye-blink away

Special Transmission 1

Total transformation is an eye-blink away…

 

‘Enlightenment is bound to be sudden; it cannot be gradual because it is not an achievement. It is simply a discovery of something forgotten. It is a remembrance, a recognition.

This is called the special transmission. Nothing is transmitted and yet something has transpired… any day, any moment – one never knows, it is unpredictable… something can transpire. And suddenly all is light, suddenly the sun has risen.

Try not to be special. Just be ordinary, and wait in silence for the special transmission. It happens. It has happened before, it can happen now. It is the easiest way to God, to Tao, to the ultimate truth…

The world that we know is not actually the world that is; it is the world that we are projecting. This is a misunderstanding. That’s why the eastern mystics have called our world nothing but a maya, an illusion. It does not mean that the rocks are not there, that the walls are not there and you can pass through them. It does not mean that the matter does not exist. It simply means that what exists is not known by you, and what is known by you is something else. Something certainly exists, but it remains unknown to the mind.

The mind is a barrier. It does not allow you to see, to feel, to know, to understand. It goes on creating misunderstanding, it is the source of all distortions. Hence, unless mind is put aside, understanding does not arise.

Understanding means a state of no-mind. That’s what meditation is all about. Meditation is the art of putting the mind aside, not allowing it to interfere, not allowing it to stand between you and the real. When you face the real without any interference of any kind – philosophical, political, religious – when there is no idea between you and the real, when the real is simply reflected in you like a tree is reflected in the lake or the face is reflected in a mirror, then there is understanding.

Understanding is a byproduct of meditation; misunderstanding is a shadow of the mind. And these are the only two ways a man can live: either one can live as a mind or one can live as a meditation. If you live as a mind you will be living in misunderstanding. But because millions of people all around you are also living in the mind you never become aware that’s what you are doing to reality, how you are distorting it, how you are continuously avoiding it – rather than getting acquainted with it, how your mind is functioning as a barrier… it is not a bridge.

But if you live with people who have the similar minds like you… a Christian living among Christians will never feel there is anything wrong with Christianity. The Hindu can see it very easily because he does not have the same projection. The Jew can see very easily: there is no problem in it. In face, the Jew cannot understand how so many people can be fooled by such simple doctrine. The Christian can see the foolishness of the Hindu – it is so obvious. The Hindu can see the mediocre ideology of the Mohammedans; not much intelligence is needed to see it. The Mohammedan can see the same in Hindus, Christians, Jews. They all go on quarreling with each other trying to prove that the other is wrong, but the reality is that mind is wrong.

…I am not telling you Hinduism is right or Christianity is right or Judaism is right. I am simply telling you mind is wrong and no-mind is right. Now, no-mind cannot have any adjective: it cannot be Hindu, cannot be Mohammedan, cannot be Christian. Mind can have an adjective, is bound to have an adjective. It will have a certain definition, a certain limitation. No-mind is vast like the great space; it is void, it is clear. It is clarity, it is transparency.

But we all live in our prejudices because we are all past-oriented. Whatsoever had been taught to us we go on repeating, whatsoever has been told to us we will go on telling our children. That’s how diseases are transferred from one generation to another generation. We call it heritage, we call it culture, religion, we call it our great past. Past is dead and to carry the dead is to become dead yourself.

To live in the present is the only way to be really alive and in tune with reality. God is always present, never past, never future. You cannot say “God was”, you cannot say “God will be” - you can only say “God is.”

No-mind is: mind never is. Either it belongs to the past… You can look in, you can just try to find out. I am not talking about any abstract theory, I am simply stating a fact. You can experiment with it. You can look into each of your thoughts and you will see from where it comes; it belongs to the past.  Or maybe you have some desire for the future; that too is nothing but a modified past, a refined past. But mind is never present.

And understanding means to be in tune with that which is, to be totally in tune, in accord with Tao, with God, with dhamma, with truth.

My sannyasins don’t belong to any religion; they cannot belong. They belong to reality. They belong to the reality that is without and the reality that is within, and they live in a harmony between the without and the within. That harmony is the ultimate in understanding.

Buddha has called it wisdom, prajna. Buddha has said meditation is the means and wisdom is the end. Meditation is the tree and wisdom is its flowering. But people who go on carrying their prejudices, their ideologies, their political doctrines, their theologies, their nationalities, their pasts, remain stupid.

If you want to remain stupid, cling to the mind. The mind can become very sophisticated, but it is nothing but stupidly sophisticated. It is stupidity pretending to be intelligent; that’s what we call ‘intelligentsia’, the so-called intellectuals.  They are not really intelligent people, they are only pretenders. Professors, authors, philosophers, scholars, these are not intelligent people, otherwise they would have been Buddhas; - they are only intellectuals. Their mind is stuffed with great information – and mind is capable of collecting great information…

Yes, he has a great deal of information – he has become a computer – but if you look into his ordinary life or in moments when his information is of no use, where he has to face life and respond spontaneously, you will immediately see his mediocrity, his stupidity.

It is a well known fact that scholars, professors, philosophers behave very stupidly in situations there spontaneity is needed…

A great scholar is staying in a hotel. He is very upset and complains to the clerk at the reception of the hotel. “What kind of hotel is this?” he cries. “There is no toilet paper in the bathroom!”

“We are very sorry, sir. It must have been a mistake.”

“This is too much! Last night I could not clean myself because there was no paper. You are a bunch of incompetents!”

The manager came to the rescue of the clerk. “Sir, you should have called room service. Don’t you have a tongue?”

“Sure I have, but I’m not a contortionist!”

…As far as Zen is concerned, mind is misunderstanding and no-mind is understanding. If you want to have understanding, move from mind to no-mind. Don’t go on polishing the mind. That’s what people are doing. You can go on polishing it your whole life; you will have a very polished mind in the end, but that will simply mean a very polished misunderstanding. It will be difficult for people to see – your stupidity will be very much hidden – but if you come across a Buddha you will be exposed. Then his X-ray eyes will immediately see that you are just stupid and nothing else…’

- Excerpted from discourses given by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho) at Shree Rajneesh Ashram, Poona, India, July 1-10 1980. Recorded in Zen: The Special Transmission,by Rajneesh Foundation International, 1984.

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‘A religion is a region with a li(e) in it.’

- R. Ayana

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Welcome to the Far Shore

Welcome to the Far Shore

 Habit or Inhabit

The Heart Sutra is chanted as part of Zen practice. It conveys the experience of the meditational insight, the Heart of Zen life. It concludes with the following mantra:

GYA TEI GYA TEI HA RA GYA TEI

HA RA SO GYA TEI BO JI SO WA KA

This means, “Gone, gone, gone to the Other Shore, landed at the Other Shore”.

This is the Other Shore. This is the moment of our final destination, the ultimate goal of all creation, the conclusion of all history and all life. In your kitchen, at your work, wherever you are, you have arrived at your final goal. Intellectually you may think of some future, but in truth this moment is the only reality. You are the true life and have nothing more to seek.

I think that just being here and doing nothing is the most important, the wisest, the greatest work in this world for a human being.

It seems to be of little importance whether we live longer or healthier lives, since this is a transient abode. The only question we are given is how we experience this limitless, real life.

The realisation of life is nothing more than the realisation of death. Doing something with all your heart and forgetting yourself in it is the ultimate truth.

The truth of life is not a goal to be attained in some particular time or place in the future, but the reality of the step you take at this very moment.

Zazen, running, conversation, reading, considering (and taking responsibility for) the problems of the world, having dinner or taking a bath… whatever you are doing now – that is the daily reality for you: do not try to escape it.

Each thing we are doing or facing now is our true reality, our true encounter. This is exactly the point. Whatever you are doing now, just do it. Don’t avoid it. If you escape from this, you are always escaping towards some future, from the cradle to the grave.

I maintain that your present imperfect state is much much better and much more full of grace than the perfect state you intend to achieve in the future. Our lives, as we are practising now, are better than anything we will gain in the future. Therefore, you should switch the centre of your being and your whole attention from your dreams of the future, and instead have your awareness on Here Now…

The life of true emptiness takes the form of whatever is here now.

“How am I doing it?” Examine this only.

We cannot and do not need to cut ourselves off from material possessions and physical pleasure. When we are naturally facing just this one encounter, this is quite enough. We don’t need to cut out anything: it happens by itself.

The fixed state is one where there is no new death, no new birth, in other words, just ‘habit’. As long as one is alive, one should be continually dying and being born in every encounter, so that the enlightened life flows forever. Every sitting is the realisation of a new world which one is seeing for the very first time.

They say that once you are contented with what you are, you will have no growth, no progress. This, I think, is a superficial understanding. Real growth, true progress, begins when you get at the truth of what you are, when you can say, “it is absolutely all right,” even though it may be very poor and miserable.

So please observe your unsatisfactory situation more and more, and take better care of it as it is. Then you may see the door open to the next world…

-         Hogen-San

From The Other Shore by Master Hogen Daido Hamahata

Published by One Way Australia

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