The World is My Mirror Read Online Free
Author: Richard Bates
Tags: Practical investigation of our true nature
absolutely known and not the mystery we thought it was.
To come home is to notice what is here now, not what can be achieved through effort and practice. This is to look with the eyes of a child and the wisdom of an adult. Nothing new is presented to us, we just simply see nakedly without trying to get something, achieve something, and distort something. Watching the bee collect her nectar from the seducing, enticing flowerhead, leaves you dumbstruck, and the recognition that this activity has its counterpart in the cooperation of your heart with your brain shows you Wholeness without words, without satsang—without gurus. This is nature’s gift to itself. It is seeing itself and it is being itself. Nature laughs at itself with a guffaw that can shake the pillars of heaven. See yourself in the cry of a new-born, in the heat of the sun and the taste of a beer on a hot day on the patio. Nothing appears without you, and you cannot be seen unless you wear a disguise. No need to give special treatment to stillness, it is over here, in the movement of life!
Mind
I want to look at something which I hope you do not think so obvious as to require no explanation. I want to explore what we mean by ‘mind’. Ordinarily the word is used to describe some kind of private activity like working a maths problem out in our head or wondering where to go on the next holiday. We can have ‘a lot on our mind’ or even feel we are ‘losing our mind.’ So, I guess we could reserve the definition for some private activity that only the thinker has access to.
I want to extend this definition, though, simply because I do not think it is comprehensive enough. Look at an object, any object, and see what it is made of. I am going to take the tape measure lying on my desk as my example. I notice its shape as curved at one end and straight at the other. It is black in colour with splashes of yellow. It feels a reasonable weight, maybe getting on for 500 grammes. It smells a bit plastic-like and I’ll leave the taste for now: it is been in my pocket and everywhere! Extend the ruler and it sounds metal-like and a bit squeaky. The point is I have not described it without appealing to all the senses I have at my disposal. I have used thinking to gain some sort of description for you. Every one of these seem separate, don’t they, but separate from what? If these senses fell away, I would find it mighty hard to hang on to the object I call tape measure. What I am getting at is that mind activity also includes the appearance of objects in the world. The remarkable thing is that we assign an independent existence to these objects. In other words, we believe they exist when the senses aren’t at work. So, if I am concentrating on cooking the dinner, I assume the tape measure is sitting on the desk in the form I previously described. This is not my experience and never has been. The tape measure is empty of its own existence. It appears when I say it does and at no other time.
I know this does not sound overly exciting and not quite Rumi’s ecstatic poetry or Tao Te Ching stuff. Nevertheless, there can be no objects in reality. Objects exist in fantasy only. But fantasy is no other than reality appearing as fantasy. There is no such thing as unreality. If you have started to release smoke out of your ears, then take a breather. I am not suggesting anything new is occurring, all I am saying is that reality is not what we have assumed it is. The reality for the individual who thinks he lives on a planet in the universe is a story; it is a dream. This is what a person cannot let go of. Because if the consensus view of life goes, so does the person. You cannot get rid of this old notion and remain intact. It is like getting rid of black and keeping white. This is why a seeker can never find what he or she is looking for. It sounds a bit bleak, I suppose, and a bit hopeless as well. But never mind, let us have a
To come home is to notice what is here now, not what can be achieved through effort and practice. This is to look with the eyes of a child and the wisdom of an adult. Nothing new is presented to us, we just simply see nakedly without trying to get something, achieve something, and distort something. Watching the bee collect her nectar from the seducing, enticing flowerhead, leaves you dumbstruck, and the recognition that this activity has its counterpart in the cooperation of your heart with your brain shows you Wholeness without words, without satsang—without gurus. This is nature’s gift to itself. It is seeing itself and it is being itself. Nature laughs at itself with a guffaw that can shake the pillars of heaven. See yourself in the cry of a new-born, in the heat of the sun and the taste of a beer on a hot day on the patio. Nothing appears without you, and you cannot be seen unless you wear a disguise. No need to give special treatment to stillness, it is over here, in the movement of life!
Mind
I want to look at something which I hope you do not think so obvious as to require no explanation. I want to explore what we mean by ‘mind’. Ordinarily the word is used to describe some kind of private activity like working a maths problem out in our head or wondering where to go on the next holiday. We can have ‘a lot on our mind’ or even feel we are ‘losing our mind.’ So, I guess we could reserve the definition for some private activity that only the thinker has access to.
I want to extend this definition, though, simply because I do not think it is comprehensive enough. Look at an object, any object, and see what it is made of. I am going to take the tape measure lying on my desk as my example. I notice its shape as curved at one end and straight at the other. It is black in colour with splashes of yellow. It feels a reasonable weight, maybe getting on for 500 grammes. It smells a bit plastic-like and I’ll leave the taste for now: it is been in my pocket and everywhere! Extend the ruler and it sounds metal-like and a bit squeaky. The point is I have not described it without appealing to all the senses I have at my disposal. I have used thinking to gain some sort of description for you. Every one of these seem separate, don’t they, but separate from what? If these senses fell away, I would find it mighty hard to hang on to the object I call tape measure. What I am getting at is that mind activity also includes the appearance of objects in the world. The remarkable thing is that we assign an independent existence to these objects. In other words, we believe they exist when the senses aren’t at work. So, if I am concentrating on cooking the dinner, I assume the tape measure is sitting on the desk in the form I previously described. This is not my experience and never has been. The tape measure is empty of its own existence. It appears when I say it does and at no other time.
I know this does not sound overly exciting and not quite Rumi’s ecstatic poetry or Tao Te Ching stuff. Nevertheless, there can be no objects in reality. Objects exist in fantasy only. But fantasy is no other than reality appearing as fantasy. There is no such thing as unreality. If you have started to release smoke out of your ears, then take a breather. I am not suggesting anything new is occurring, all I am saying is that reality is not what we have assumed it is. The reality for the individual who thinks he lives on a planet in the universe is a story; it is a dream. This is what a person cannot let go of. Because if the consensus view of life goes, so does the person. You cannot get rid of this old notion and remain intact. It is like getting rid of black and keeping white. This is why a seeker can never find what he or she is looking for. It sounds a bit bleak, I suppose, and a bit hopeless as well. But never mind, let us have a
Readers choose
David Nickle
Unknown
Robert Silverberg, Damien Broderick
Mignon G. Eberhart
Dorie Greenspan
Denis Johnson
Kathy Dunnehoff
T.J. Bennett