There Is No Escaping Life

We know from history that Buddha never returned to anything resembling the life he separated from as a young prince. The progression of consciousness that he manifested had made any such arrangement impossible. The conditions of the paths that the people of his time called “the marketplace” and “the householder” no longer promoted his development. 

What a close reading of his life tells us, however, is that having achieved his level of awareness never precluded his having to deal with at least some of the elements of the human condition. It only makes sense, after all, that existing on this plane means confronting illness, infirmity, old age and death. No one escapes the effects of his or her context altogether. What he became skilled at is not being distracted from his enlightened way by any ordinary human concern. 

It behooves us to become clear that we will not escape our lives. Accepting who and where we are is an essential part of the foundation for all of the Buddha-like personal work we will be doing. We are not special, nor do we ever want to feel that we are special in ways that make us fundamentally dissimilar from our contemporaries. We are in the contexts we experience around us in order to grow. Not having them would be like living in weightlessness and expecting that our bones would be unaffected by the lack of gravitational pull.

We still need to be in the marketplace for the resistance it provides to the completely peaceful life. Even monks are made to sweep floors and clean bathrooms. And they have to put up with fellow monks and masters who they might find irritating. Once beyond Eden, there is no going back. 

What changes is our “us-ness.” While we remain essentially the same as always, how we experience the self is the core of our work. It is consciousness that evolves, not the being that is represented by the self. That being merely provides the gravity that assures the health of the support structure of our human awareness.

So, there is no “fast-forward” in the development of consciousness. The self, with its patternistic thoughts and emotions, remains a part of our everyday experience. The capacity for pure observation is in the wings waiting to welcome us in its own time. We just need to watch ourselves as everything arises and then practice letting it all pass. Needs will be reduced to wants, wants will be reduced to preferences, and even preferences will erode into just minor desires that fade when left alone. 

Eventually we will not even feel as if we are choosing, but that we are accepting what seems to be chosen for us in any given moment. There is no “me.” There is only acceptance. Nothing is actually removed. There is just no reaction to animate or strengthen a feeling, thought, fear or desire. 

The Pace of Change

Every child has to have an identity. He or she needs answers to the question, “Who am I?” in order to perceive his or her existence. No identity, no sense of “being.”

The culture into which we are born addresses this need with consensually-agreed upon beliefs, concepts and the like that are inculcated into subliminal consciousness through many repetitions over a long period of  time. 

Thus, we develop identities much the same way a river develops a sandbar, one grain of sand building upon another year after year. And like a sandbar altering the water’s course, the path of consciousness is eventually altered by the structure that now deflects its current.

In the case of consciousness moving toward enlightened awareness, past a certain point in our development, a fixed sense of self can hinder progress. Our job as active participants in the evolutionary process is to dissolve the sandbar.

Sandbars are best removed in the manner that they originally formed: one grain at a time. These are our identities, after all; we cannot afford to lose them all of a sudden.  

That is why the change process takes so long. If we were able to remove the disruption in the flow too quickly, there would be paralyzing disorientation in regard to who we are and what we are doing here. 

With fundamental change, it is best to take a patient and persistent approach. Just keep paying attention to the beliefs, opinions and positions that you become aware of that you hold about anything. Remember, any statement that begins with “I think ... I believe ... it is my opinion that ...,” especially the ones that we feel most strongly about, is first and foremost an expression of “I am” and represents a grain of sand in that barrier. 

Don’t attack any of them; just note them and let them go. Like the water itself, they are sure to come by again. When they do, just take note and let go. With time, the mass will dissolve and the flow will be released. Things then look quite different.

Celebrate the Self

Because, like breathing, it has just always been a part of our lives, we tend not to step back and take an appreciative look at the self. Here is an opportunity.

The self is the mental structure that provides us with a sense of being unique among all other people. I am me and you are you, and although in an abstract way we know that we are all “one,” our actual perceptual experience does not provide visceral proof. We “feel” separate, and that is that. 

And we are supposed to feel separate; that is the main function of the self. It provided the very first opportunity in all of evolution to actually experience separate existence. 

Think about it. We have the ability to watch our selves as if we are both marching in a parade while at the same instant standing on the curb watching us as we pass. Prior to the self there existed no such awareness of existence. (Other animals, and even plants, have awareness, but not like this.)

Therefore, while celebrating our unity with each other and with the rest of the universe, we may want to appreciate the sense of separateness that allows the incredible awareness that we enjoy every day: the self. 

Fear and Change

When considering why change is so difficult, it might be useful to keep Plato’s Allegory of the Cave in mind.

In this story, the cave’s inhabitants were chained to a log with a fire at their backs and a bare rock wall in front of them. All they were able to perceive beyond the darkness were their own shadows cast onto the wall by the firelight, and over time they came to accept the shadow world as a limit of reality.

One day, one of the cave dwellers had an inspiration. He began to imagine that there was more to life than he had been led to believe, and by simply turning his gaze rearward, his inspiration was rewarded with a panoramic view of a broad, lush, light-filled plain that stretched from the cave opening to the far horizon. He was ecstatic at his discovery.

However, when he tried to tell the others what he had seen, he was immediately set upon and killed. Clearly, no one else wanted to deal with the threat that his inspiration represented to the group’s fundamental beliefs. And after the execution, anyone who might have been inclined to imagine an alternative to the shadow reality must have thought seriously about keeping his eyes forward.

What the work of this philosopher offers us is a reflection on the power of what we have been taught and the effect of all the beliefs and practices that represent the consciousness status quo on our movement toward higher consciousness.  

Uncovering hidden influences on our perception of reality takes the gentle persistence of a regular practice of self observation and a willingness to do what Buddha prescribed, which is to doubt everything.

Kitten Consciousness

There was an enlightening study of perception done in which kittens were divided into two experimental groups. One group was raised in a room with horizontal stripes painted on the walls; the other group was raised in a room with vertical stripes painted on the walls.

When the “horizontally-reared” group was placed in a room with vertical structures, such as furniture legs, all of the kittens bumped into them as if the obstructions were not there. The same thing occurred with the other kittens when placed in a room with horizontal structures.

Because of previous conditioning, the kittens simply did not see what was literally right in front of their eyes. In a sense, their brains were on automatic pilot and their perceptual systems behaved as programmed even if the outcome was not in the kittens’ best interest.

What this study suggests is that the preconceptions that filter how we view the world that we assume we have come up with independently are perhaps less independent than we think.

Information is planted verbally and nonverbally early-on and is continually reinforced over many years by the families, societies and cultures with which we identify and on which we are emotionally dependent. This information provides us with the answer to the question, “Who am I?”

There is a saying that goes, “He was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.” This can apply to many of the positions, values and principles we hold that we think we arrived at on our own. This is especially likely with those that result in a “knee-jerk” or “gut-wrenching” reaction, or that we feel defensive about and are ready to instantly defend. 

We are up against a lot when trying to uncover who we really are. Patience and persistence are the keys.

The Heart of Meditation

Meditation is essentially a time of being quiet and still. Like all other things in creation, it is also a relative act, meaning that you can be “quieter and stiller” if being truly settled does not come easily. 

The main idea is just to slow things down. So, while some might sit in a comfortable chair in a favored room, others may do better strolling around the neighborhood or the park.

The heart of meditation is shifting the dominant brain wave frequencies from those having to do with being focused and productive (beta), to those associated with leisure (alpha and theta).

This “downshift” is readily accomplished through diaphragmatic breathing, which involves the muscle just below the ribcage that controls breathing. 

Diaphragmatic breathing aids meditation in two ways. First, it changes the oxygen/carbon dioxide balance in the brain, which has everything to do with how relaxed the body is. And second, it provides a place to focus attention when the mind gets distracted.

Start by placing your hands on your abdomen just below your ribcage. Inhale slowly, and as you do make sure your abdomen expands against your hands. Do this several times, then hold your breath for a couple of beats before exhaling. When you do exhale, let your whole body go limp like a rag doll. When your mind drifts, gently return your attention to your hands.

Do this for ten or fifteen minutes initially and increase the time as you wish. It’s that simple.

What Consciousness Is

Having participated in Twitter for a while now, and having read any number of tweets regarding consciousness, I have seen that people’s ideas about what consciousness is are all over the place. The following should help clear things up. 

Here is a simple way to think about consciousness: Imagine holding a four inch length of electrical wire in your hand. Picture about an inch of the outer coating stripped away so that you can clearly see all of its components at a glance: the metal, any insulating material between the metal and the outer cover, and the outer cover itself.

Consciousness is every component of the wire and every aspect of its manufacture. It is the elements that evolved into the base metal; it is all of the knowledge that went into designing and building the machines that dug and hauled the metal and that is used in the wire factory; it is the science of metallurgy; it is the human intelligence that put this all together; and it is the current that flows over the wire once it is put into use. (Of course, it is also the “you” who is reading and thinking about this piece.)

You get the idea. The point is that consciousness is everything and everything is consciousness. It is the physical, the mental and the spiritual. And from an evolutionary perspective, because the physical predates the mental, and both of these are necessary to perceive the spiritual, the common conception of “spiritual” consciousness being somehow superior to the others is just not correct. 

It is my hope that having a more unified idea about what consciousness is will add to everyone’s appreciation of how the universe is put together and what it means that we are all one.