Is This Not Obvious?

If you cannot find truth where you are ...
Where else do you expect to find it?
Dogen

Realization requires a knowing that sits above and before our mind. Often, it's our very own cleverness that keeps us out of the profundity of This, this just-as-it-isness. We are in fact already seeing from truth, as truth ... because it's what we really are ... but we've allowed and continue to allow clever thinking to obscure what is always already here. Our thinking about not yet arrived, not yet ready, not yet good enough ... awake enough ... aware enough, this thinking is the very barrier that keeps us from the direct perception of what already is. It is a matter of simplifying things ... making room in our heads to allow for what is present to be "seen" beyond our heads.

Someone once said that "Success is a refined study of the obvious."
This could also be said about realization, because the obvious is so immediate, so already-always-here and exactly why it's so easily missed or overlooked. Our minds are always seeking one step away from this direct knowing ... pre-thought ... pre-feeling.

We mustn't get too clever as we can too easily box ourselves in.

This moment is clear, here and immediate.

The mind can't grasp it, but that doesn't make it any less clear or immediate. This is it ... not our mind's perception of the moment as that's already a construct and already in the past, but the direct knowing of the One who sees and knows, already aware of what is, with or without the mind's participation. All that the mind is doing is translating what is already seen and known. "Seen the moment you look, free the moment it's seen," said Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche.

I love Ken Wilber's description of this direct perception ... this One Taste. He writes:
"It's not quite right to describe One Taste as a "consciousness" or an "awareness", that's a little too heady, too cognitive. It's more like a Feeling of Being: it is the simple, present feeling of existence.

"But it's quite different from all other feelings or experiences, because this simple Feeling of Being does not come and go. It is not in time at all, though time flows through it, as one of the many textures of its own sensation. The simple Feeling of Being is not an experience - it is a vast Openess in which all experiences come and go, an infinite spaciousness in which all perceptions move, a great Spirit in which the forms of its own play arise, remain a bit, and pass ... The simple Feeling of Being, which is the simple feeling of existence, is the simple feeling of One Taste.

"Is this not obvious?" Wilber challengingly asks. "Aren't you already aware of existing? Don't you already feel the simple Feeling of Being? Don't you already possess this immediate gateway to ultimate Spirit, which is nothing other than the simple Feeling of Being? You have this simple feeling now, don't you? And you have it now, don't you? And now, yes?

"And don't you already realize that this Feeling is Spirit itself? Godhead Itself? Emptiness itself? Spirit does not pop into existence: it is the only thing that is constant in your experience - and that is the simple Feeling of Being itself, a subtle, constant, background awareness that, if you look very closely, very carefully, you will realize you have had since the Big Bang and before - not because you existed way back when, but because you truly exist prior to time, in this timeless moment, whose feeling is the simple Feeling of Being: now, and now, and always and forever now.

"You feel the simple Feeling of Being? Who is not already enlightened?"

Wilber uses intelligence to express what is beyond mind intelligence ... beyond language ... yet here it is ... so blaringly obvious ... this simple Feeling of Being.

Taste this. It's clear, pure, direct and obvious ... let the words open a doorway into Eternal Vastness. Words can do this because even words are part of the One Taste ... taste it, savour it, enjoy it ... It is This.

Peace It Together

"Peace it together..." reads the bumper sticker. Why does the mind so enjoy these little devices of insight? Just like a Kong-an or its better known Japanese counterpart, the Koan, it gives us an opportunity to explore, expand, embrace and enlighten... this is insight.

A joke can do the same. Humour is often an awakening call, a Zen hit on the shoulders. Words can and do often hold us captive in their invisible conceptual cages but they can also set us free. In words we can lose ourselves but in words we can also find ourselves. In an instant we are transported from where we are to the other side of the universe and back again... "You are the Eternal Vastness" ... how much of This can your mind hold?

"Peace it together"... In an instant I see John Lennon crusading in the sixties singing "Give Peace a Chance" coupled with the Beatles singing "Come Together" and am shown the profound truth that only in unity, in true unity beyond the opposing conflicts of dualistic thinking can we ever hope to find real and lasting peace. And, doing so individually, we hook in collectively, as in the Buddhist declaration:

May all beings be happy
May all beings become enlightened
May all beings find peace

For the good of all..."Peace it together." There is nothing that isn't unified anyway... even our ignorance and conflicted notion of separation is a wave in the ocean of unity. There's no escaping this blatant, blaringly obvious truth. Take a few deep breaths, go within, stop, look, listen... who is there? No, not the "Me" that's always so evident... go a little past that... soften, open, expand and go deeper... who is there? Keep going... don't look for a "me" in there. Just allow for "what-is" to surface, to become available ... to be seen. In this you will discover not a sign of the me that you believe yourself to be. Keep going... deeper... Keep looking... but don't look back, you won't get lost. Don't worry, the little me will return... just keep going deeper... What do you see?

Ah... thought settles. Calm is what's here... yes, peace... that's a good word for it! And, are you alone in this peace?... You're not separate but there is still this uniqueness .. this Presence... this "I AMness"...

But are you alone?

Well, there's no other... there's only one yet, all others are included in this... how to say it... Oh... "Peace it together" that's it.
And all is just as it is, exactly as it should be... nothing to add, nothing to remove, nothing to change.

The great sages shared their insight and knowing in words, hinting & pointing out This that each and every one of us already is. This that we're so desparately seeking, we already are. This... this ordinary life, just as it is. Nothing new ever discovered, no matter how far back we go, every sage only ever discovers or realises This... the same This that we are all swimming in together.

Dogen said:
If you cannot find truth where you already are... where else do you expect to find it?
Any time is this time. Every moment is this moment. There's only ever This... vast, radiant, eternal... This is it... and, oh so ordinary... extraordinarily ordinary.

Zen Master Buson said:
Nobly, the great priest deposits his daily stool in the bleak winter fields.
Could it be more ordinary than this? Buson could see... really see that no matter what it is, if it is, it's surely This.

Another insight shared in words:
If you understand - things are as they are.
If you don't understand - things are as they are.

Once again, only words, yet more than words... words not only pointing to, but away from. It's all about dropping out of where the words land and looking into the words' source. Where do words come from? We are so immersed in words, our heads are usually very full of them, even in our silence our thoughts ramble on and on and on...

Go beyond words into This that always is. The purpose of words is to mirror back their essential emptiness, the wordless... the unspoken, just like life itself.

And here we are...
You... Me and This...
Can we dare to "Peace it together"?