Finder Questionnaire Responses
Finder Questionnaire Responses
See Teachers’ biographies here.
TAT Teachers
TAT-Affiliated Teachers & Friends
Other Teachers
1. What did you find?
A vast range of things, from everything being just where it is happening as it does and knowing itself intrinsically, to deep states and stages across a wide range from horrible to weird to amazing, a vast range of strange energetic effects, healings, some traumatic stuff as well, amazing teachers who were often all too human yet somehow reassuring in that ordinariness and imperfection, tons of theory both helpful and confusing, a vast range of orthodoxies and sects to promote and argue about those orthodoxies, an internet full of opportunity and toxicity, earnest friends and co-journeyers as well as dedicated “worthy opponents” and detractors, the Eight Worldly Winds — pain and pleasure, gain and loss, fame and ill repute, praise and blame; magical powers both remarkable and disappointing, amazingly compassionate and saintly people helping to support the process, as well as power-trippy psychopaths wanting to own, control, exploit, and do other really unfortunate things to the institutions and seekers on the path, and lots of people who were some mix of those elements to various degrees; shadow sides, shadow sides to shadow sides, light, space, amazement, grief, peace, suffering, humanity, projection, transference, countertransference, deep and often apparently contradictory philosophy, and ultimately the soteriological effects that were, if nothing else, realistic, if not always exactly conforming to my ideals, appreciations of broader perspectives, meta-perspectives, and meta-meta-perspectives; and, perhaps just as important as any of the rest, various ethical considerations, systems, and practices. Of note, the answers I am giving in these small boxes are superficial and understandably limited, so please take all of them in that light. For more, please see https://mctb.org and the numerous other sources it references from a wide range of traditions.
2. What is your general advice to seekers?
Keep your wits about you. See for yourself. Seek ethical and wise companions and teachers as the first priority. Know and learn not only where the metaphorical accelerator pedal is, but also the steering wheel, brakes (regular and emergency) and when to step from the burning car and run. If you are in a map-based tradition, work to cultivate a mature relationship to them. If you are not in a map-based tradition, consider that there are maps out there that sometimes are normalizing and explanatory, as well as skillfully prescriptive, but also may have a steep learning curve, and can cause competition and comparison and judgement and all of that, so see the previous point. This moment, however sometimes unappealing, must somehow be both the basis of the path and its result. This body, mind, and heart contain many answers if you can learn to perceive them clearly and go through the organic process. The journey is very unlikely to be linear or all pleasant and upward. All traditions contain some wisdom and some shadow sides, and may be better fits at some times and for some people than others. Higher dose practice generally produces more rewards but also more potential risks, so consider the proper dose, and titrate and modify based on current circumstances, goals, logistical, functional and social realities and obligations, and risk tolerances.
3. Answer any or all of the following that you feel are relevant. What are your thoughts/feelings about:
a) Abiding and non-abiding awakening (i.e., knowledge of the Self/Truth vs. abiding as the Self/Truth)
While there are reports of exceptions, for most, glimpses and hints and parts of the solution and realization will arise before there is some more established abiding in that, which may also be phrased as the process of falsely imputing separateness, stability, and knowledge to the sense of a center, doer, controller, subject, etc. may be seen through in pieces and parts until finally the process of limited identification and futile attempts at stabilization, generally layer by layer, stops.
b) Are “Who (or what are you), whence (where did you come from), and whither (where are you going)?” fundamental questions for a seeker?
They certainly may be very useful for some, often if this curiosity is coupled with cultivated enhancements to attention, acceptance, and perception, and some support to the views that might increase the likelihood of such inquiry being salutary.
c) Bliss
Bliss is of many varieties, some positive, meaning due to the presence of something, such as bliss, or related feelings and qualities such as gratitude, peace, tranquility, stability, acceptance, openness, focus, wisdom, health, etc. Bliss may also be negative, meaning due to the absence of something, such as the absence of identification, contraction, adversity, disturbance, craving, ignorance, sickness, pain, etc.
Bliss of the positive variety is always conditional, meaning transient, and relating skillfully to this transience is important. Bliss may also be an object of investigation, as with any other object.
Bliss also may, in the very special case of the type related to the stopping of the processes of identification that are comprised in the term “ignorance”, apply to all things, in that very specific way, and not precluding any particular arising of specifics. Regarding myself, I am a bit of an aversive type, so bliss doesn’t hold my attention as well as it holds the attention of some. This is a mixed blessing, but it did make bliss easier to investigate and break into component parts and gain insights from.
d) Doing vs. not doing
Doing and not doing are impressions that arise naturally, owing to the conditioning of the universe, often called karma or causality or dependent arising. They are meanings based on specific sensate qualities. Sometimes, the feeling of control, doing, action, agency is arising. Sometimes the feeling of non-control, inevitability, non-negotiability, passivity, and agencylessness is arising. Sometimes there may be a paradoxical mix of these. In a few, there is the deep, abiding understanding, “Doing and not doing are simply two categories of related qualities that arise naturally sometimes and imply no separate, stable, localized doer anywhere.” Investigating the naturally arising stream of intentions that precede actions may reveal this sort of wisdom, as may other types of practices.
e) Enlightenment (Buddhahood, Christ-consciousness)
It is described above in various ways, and, while there is controversy around these sorts of definitions and criteria, as well as the language around this, I tend to prefer the definition include somehow notions of natural arising, things perceiving themselves where they are, all thoughts of present and past and now being clearly perceived naturally as transiently occurring now, no sense of a true and stable “center, doer, controller, be-er, perceiver, knower, agent,” to be found in any transient experience as one’s baseline without exception, the process of creating such a set of impressions or root existential interpretations having stopped entirely. If often is reported and experienced to progress in stages, layers, and quantum shifts, but not always. It is easy to mistake many transient highs, openings, formless experiences, unitive experiences, void experiences, unknowing experiences, equanimous experiences, blissful experiences, and magical experiences as being an abiding awakening. I tend towards a rough perennialism regarding awakening, with some elements that are nearly universal, and some that do seem to have individual variation in the particulars.
f) Hypnosis (influencing another person mind-to-mind)
Hypnosis is a potentially powerful modality that one can use both related to others and also on oneself. Clearly, some are more susceptible or amenable than others, and this trait of it working on one appears to be something one can cultivate. Ethics are extremely powerful here, and its misuse is common in spiritual circles (as well as in politics, advertising, etc.). Variants of hypnotic inductions and techniques are often used in spiritual talks, and some teachers, such as Dan Brown, were explicitly doing this to help point people towards realization. Strong debates exist about the degree to which hypnotic pointings towards wisdom or deep states are equivalent to “real pointings”, and how to even sort out this question is not easy. If done skillfully, hypnosis can produce deep shifts, healing, revelations, journeys, insights, and psychological benefits, as well as physical ones. If done poorly, a vast range of damage may be done. For some, it seems to do little, and they appear nearly congenitally immune to its effects. In subtle forms, it pervades spiritual messages and likely has memetic and mythic impact broadly across the globe in ways often underappreciated. I personally have appreciated a range of techniques that involve hypnotic elements, and, in fact, view all meditation as involving elements essentially indistinguishable from elements you find within the hypnotic practice traditions. For magic, using hypnotic priming is extremely powerful, and care and ethics must be used in this regard to attempt to optimize good outcomes.
g) Identity
Identity is a complex question with many layers and aspects, including, but not limited to: existential, psychological (often containing multitudes, as in Internal Family Systems), social (roles, jobs, family, community, etc.), physical, emotional, perceptual, ontological, epistemic, and “spiritual”. Spiritual practices may add, subtract, and modify our senses of identity — as seekers, True Self, no-self, teachers, successes, failures, members of a tribe or sect, knowers, as having existed across many lives or not exist at all, as being divine or void, as being transient or eternal, as being energy, 5D, incarnated aliens, love, Cosmic Consciousness, etc. Projections, Transference, and Countertransference arising from interactions with community members, other sects, teachers, students, the internet, the public, and the like may produce very complex identity effects. Fundamental perceptual shifts of a wide variety may be created by various practices and modalities, including powerful dissociations, powerful identifications, powerful disentanglings, powerful tanglings, many others. The mixed benefits and harms of these shifts may vary widely across various practitioners and time-scales and settings. It is rare to engage deeply in spiritual practices and modalities without having numerous “life lessons” related to the many forms of identity. Disorientation for some periods of time is common both in ourselves and those around us as identities of various types shift and morph on the path.
h) Individual consciousness of awareness
Clearly, from some very ordinary functional points of view, the notion of there being an “individual consciousness of awareness” is an ontological, perceptual, clinical, and ordinary lens that has many uses, being most of the default way that the situation with people is described and operationalized in both discourse and the ordinary business of our lives. That some may have also added perceptual shifts that “see through” this process in varying degrees of depth and apparent permanence doesn’t negate the first key point. Still, this should not in any way negate the counterpoint, that being that seeing through some sense that consciousness is individual, seeing deeply that everything seems to be aware of itself where it is, isn’t also very important, and some version of this is very understandably included in many to most descriptions and reports of awakening, realization, or however it is phrased. Simply perceiving experience right now clearly enough can begin to show the paradoxes related to the sense of individuality as well as something in the apparent pervasiveness of “awareness”, as well as the curious thing that “consciousness” seems to be and seems not to be and how this may relate to the typically initially perceived separate something that “awareness” might be, and exploring these is rightly often reported to be a key to understanding and wisdom.
i) Meditation
Meditation has a vast range of meanings and definitions, as well as functional techniques and real-world operationalizations. It is practiced with so many differing focuses, styles, doses, and settings and with so many varied conceptual underpinnings and stated and implied goals as to be a topic as wide as saying something like “Religion” or “Culture”. Narrowing it down, and related to my own path, I have found meditation very helpful, generally, though producing a wide variety of effects, many of which were not pleasant in the short to medium term, but, ultimately, was profoundly empowering, revelatory, and transformative, though not always in the exact ways described by orthodoxy, though sometimes very much so. I have followed a variety of styles and traditions, from those designed to produce deep states of bliss, peace, and even formless experiences, as well as loving-kindness, caring, compassion, empathy, equanimity, and a wide range of elemental, colorful, archetypal, healing, and magical experiences. However, my primary path was one of insight practices, often heavily influenced by various strains of vipassana, often heavily influenced by the Theravada Commentaries and the Pali Canon, particularly the Abhidhamma, and often with a modern Burmese twist.
j) No-self
That there is no stable, separate, abiding, knowing, doing, controlling, be-ing self at the center of experience, and realizing this in a way that totally stops the process of the brain desperately trying to create such a things form transient, natural sensations that arise and vanish on their own — this was, for me, the key point, and the most important benefit of the path. I recognize that there are various risks, benefits, and alternatives to the language of no-self, and some, at times, might benefit from other sorts of language, such as True Self, Soul, Divine Self, etc. I consider all such linguistic maneuvers potentially valuable in various contexts, depending on desired outcomes, functional considerations, and cultural resonances.
k) No-thought
I have a long discourse on no-thought found here https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-v-awakening/37-models-of-the-stages-of-awakening/the-no-thought-models/
Summarizing, and losing much in the summary: first one must be very careful about what one means by “thought”: Inner voice? Intentions to perform actions? Mental impressions? Ability to dream? Ability to anticipate? Ability to remember? Ability to reason? Ability to visualize? Ability to conceptualize? Mental noise? Primarily being consciousness through one’s mental impressions and concepts vs by direct experience? Self-referential narrative?
While it is often reported, and I have found myself, that the proportion of experience taken up by thought may, on average, diminish sometimes (dreams being an obvious exception), and that thoughts may be perceived not only for their meanings but also as subtle experiences of sounds, sights, physical stuff, etc., and that thus the proportion of experience that is made up by thought may radically diminish as the Default Mode Network is reconfigured to prefer being “in the room” rather than “lost in thought”, and that the basic experience may become vastly more quiet, and that the vast majority of experience may be perceived vastly more directly vastly more of the time, still… I find ideas of “no-thought” as an ideal often produce massive shadow sides as people cultivate layers of delusion to fit the model and thus massive shadow sides rather than “waking up”. Having had the good fortune to talk and correspond with some people who claim to have “no thoughts”, I can confidently state that they do, in fact, “think”, even if they think they don’t. 😉
l) Rapport (contacting another person mind-to-mind)
Yeah, this is something that can happen sometimes, and some are more skilled at contacting others, and some are more skilled at being contacted, and some are more skilled at both. Like all of the powers, the signal and reliability are generally glitchy and should be taken with appropriate grains of salt. Ethics, as always, is a key consideration. Given that mind-to-mind connections probably happen at least at some subtle level with each and every interaction, ethics thus should always be maintained as a key goal and practice, even if we don’t believe some more dramatic mind-to-mind something is happening.
The range of effects that can happen during what you call “rapport” is vast, and basically everything you have ever heard described and probably more. Clearly, there is some positive correlation between more meditation dose and rapport, as well as intending to have it happen and it happening, as well as the dose of other things, such as psychedelics, powerful rituals, and the like. Priming is also clearly positively correlated as well, as are other hypnotic techniques.
m) Reality
I personally am an ontologically agnostic Empirical empirical pragmatist, meaning that I hold ontological frame of “what is reality” loosely, checking in my personal experience (Empirical, in the David Hume sense) that reproducibly (empirical in the scientific sense of experiment) an adopted ontological frame will pragmatically be of some utility. We all do this to some degree, shifting from various frames, mathematical, psychological, social, experiential, etc., depending on our situation and goals, but I go out of my way to do this a bit more formally sometimes. For insight meditation, I have found an immediate sensate frame useful. For magical practices, I find magical frames often useful, though not always. For stopping magical effects, I find Materialist frames useful, as I do for some clinical situations, but not all. For clinical situations, a mix of social, biological, and experiential frames often worked well. For business, I like a good spreadsheet taken with a high dose of skepticism of the numbers that go into it. For human relationships, a vast range of frames are useful, from various psychological, energetic, ethical, and archetypal to many others. So, as to the question of “reality”, well, that depends.
n) Self-Realization (peeling away fabricated layers of one’s own personality to understand the true self and hence the true nature of reality)
I think it is a good idea, though as to whether nor not I would frame it as “self-realization” or no-self, or whatever, see above.
o) Silence
Times of silence are clearly beneficial sometimes from a practice, meditative point of view. As to an experience, silence is a designation of a particular set of sensate qualities. There are a wide variety of silences, as pointed out by authors such as Patrick Rothfuss and many others — the silences of absence, the silences of anticipation, the silences in conversation, the silences of intentionally secluding the mind from sound, the silences of distraction and inattention (such as when we don’t hear someone say something directly to us as we are lost in thought), the deep silences found in deep states of meditation, etc. Silence may be relative or absolute. Silence may be pathological, as in deafness from illness or ear damage, or extremely valuable for getting work done, as in from noise-cancelling headphones. I attribute no particularly ontological statue or hierarchical value to silence necessarily, but have, at times, valued some of the silences mentioned above greatly.
p) Tension
Tension has a wide range of meanings, including, but not limited to: social, physical, structural, ontological, philosophical, etc. Tension can be useful signal, but often implies something negative, as in “that rope is too tense and it might break”, or “you are gripping this too tightly”, or “your neck muscles are too tense”, or “that meeting sure felt tense”. Tension can be an indication of both pathology (“their abdominal muscles were so tense that I wonder if they have intraabdominal trauma”) or valuable (“the tension on that guitar string is just right, sounds great”). There can be tension in the body during meditation that might be an indication of an opportunity for growth through investigation or just poor posture that might be good to listen to in order to avoid hurting oneself. There can be tension between students and teachers, between various sects, between ideals and reality, and these may be dynamic or somewhat static, as well as lead to mixes of growth and discord, problems and possibilities. We may have tensions within ourselves, often during the process by which decisions occur. Lots to say about tensions beyond this, and exploring where one might go might be interpreted as a Rorschach test of the explorer. From a meditative point of view, I have benefitted from the tension exploration techniques of Robert Harry Hover as articulated in the book Internal Moving Healing, and influenced by Sayagyi U Ba Khin, as well as a variety of bodywork modalities, yoga, vipassana, and many others.
q) Transmission
Transmission, presuming in this case you mean the spiritual/energetic variety and not those found in automobiles, for example, is definitely a thing, reported across cultures, times, and settings. I have been on both ends of it, sometimes dramatically. Some people are good at transmitting, with some able to do this with curiously high rates of reliability, and others transmit sporadically or rarely, with little sense of dependability or control. Others are good at receiving, being transmitted to, and various settings, frame, preparations, rituals, contexts, mythic resonances, primings, and the like clearly appear to correlate with receiving transmissions being more likely. Transmissions may have a range of predominant and lesser aspects of what is transmitted and what is received, including feelings, energy, information, wisdom, perceptions, healings, and influence. Transmissions may work in both directions, and, I believe, nearly always do to some degree. Transmissions may be energy draining or amplifying for one or both parties. Transmissions may not always be entirely beneficial, and, in fact, some may be profoundly detrimental, either accidentally or intentionally. Transmissions can be profoundly connecting, yet may also cause powerful social instabilities, and these effects may vary depending on time-scale — short, medium, long, etc. Some transmissions strike like lightening, others may be very subtle, and the intensity may also vary in the short, medium, and long-term, with some transmissions not being obvious until months, years, or even decades later. Mass group transmissions can occur as well, with large collective effects, and many human gatherings contain elements of transmission of some sort. Transmissions are often also initiations. Transmission is a very complex topic that I have just scratched the surface of here. Again, the intentional practice and aspiration to ethics around transmission is vital, realizing that transmission often also involves shadow sides being a part of the mix even if we try to pretend otherwise.
r) Truth
Lots of ways to conceptualize and discourse on “truth” obviously. I will begin simply, with ethics, and the notion that truth in speech is very often a good thing to aspire to and practice, with the question of what and in what context exceptions are the more ethical option being a life-long koan, at least for me. So, as a precept, as part of the 5, 8, 10, or 227/311+ precepts in the tradition I have most often practiced in, Right Speech is a valuable practice to undertake. “Truth” may also be deeper, regarding how we view and interpret the world, and you should see my discussion of ontologically agnostic Empirical empirical pragmatism above. One meaning of “Dharma” or “dhamma” is “truth”, truths of this momentary experience, truths that help us better understand this experience, truths that might help reduce suffering and increase wisdom and wellbeing, depending on the epistemic and temporal frame. Questions of universal Truths and their relationship individual truths are often a key part of explorations on the spiritual path, as least so I found on my own path. On the other hand, there are moments when skillful or instinctual denial of various truths might have a temporary practical benefit, such as in cases of shock and immediate trauma, or continuing on living happy lives in the face of things like Climate Change, etc. It might be true that focusing too hard on various truths might not always lead to the best outcomes across various timescales and in various settings. Still, obviously, the Quest for Truth drives many a practitioner, and certainly drove and drives me often enough. These days, the truths I find most interesting to chase are mostly large, philanthropic ones, questions such as, “How to effectively scale knowledge of the deep end of human experience to the global clinical, mental health, public health, and public mainstreams to promote better outcomes for those on and around the path?”
s) What can we know for sure: What we are? What we aren’t? Other?
Again, see above with regard to my strict ontological frame, which does contain one key elements relevant here, that of Empiricism, in the David Hume sense, in the strict immediate experience sense, that experiences occur: this does seem a sound basis from which to be begin, at least, and hard to imagine others, once we realize that thoughts and extrapolations are also experiences in that immediate Empirical frame.
t) What is your certainty based on?
See above.
u) What prevents a seeker from knowing the truth?
The answers to this question are clearly “many uncountable causes”, and, from a certain point of view, the question is sort of like asking, “Why is there experience?” However, bringing it back down from that vast uncertainty, and speaking in practical but reductive generalities, common categories of reasons may include: 1) a lack of sufficiently clear perception of the numerous sensations that appear to constitute experience, thoughts, intentions, mental impressions, memories, anticipations, emotions, states of mind, the body, sounds, tastes, smells, sights, etc. 2) the notion that truth is found in an imagine future rather than this immediate changing present, 3) that truth involves a stable experience rather than giving up the existential, interpretive, and perceptual habit of creating a sense of separate, knowing, controlling central stability, 4) numerous Maslowvian hindrances that cause understandable preoccupations with things like securing food, shelter, safety, a health relationship or relationships, physical health, basic psychological health, healing from trauma, dealing with war, poverty, oppression, lack of access to information and the freedom to practice, etc. 5) poor instructions and models that take the seeker more away from their actual lived experience than towards it, 6) poor interpretations of good instructions and models in that same away direction, 7) poor fits between the seeker and the instructions and models, which may be good, but not good for that person at that time, 8) there are probably genetic and epigenetic factors we don’t understand very well yet related to perception, 9) the perennial drives for control, stability, safety, and bliss in a universe of sensations that unfolds naturally, transiently, and which involves pain, suffering, illness, conflict, disappointment, grief, loss, and death, 10) the countless temptations and distractions of the world that may promise salvation but which may mostly deliver cost, addiction, distraction, ill health, biosphere degredation, or craving for only fleeting reprieve, 11) a lack of sufficient intensity of one of the “roads to power”, such as curiosity, compassion, aspiration, kindness, ethical motivation, or suffering sufficient to create necessity, 12) fellow travelers on the path that have settled for lesser truths and may counsel that others do the same, 13) having been born in a place, time, and circumstance not conducive to practice and wisdom, 14) countless other factors that are hard to fathom.
v) “You are aware prior to birth and aware after you die, so you begin with awareness, but you are not conscious of awareness.” ~ Richard Rose, The Direct-Mind Experience
Interesting quote and a complex set of ontological and existential ideas that might be of varying degrees of value to various seekers at various places on various paths. Making this personal for just a bit, and using that frame to illustrate more general points: having had nearly “all” of the various ontologically compelling experiences — oneness, voidness, non-duality, rebirth and past lives, all is pure energy, there is nothing that is reborn, there is only this moment, I have existed since the Dawn of Time, thousands of lifetimes ago I was a divine time-perceiving being that could see through countless possible permutations of the Multiverse, traveling out of body, perceiving AWARENESS as a stable and eternal space in which all arise, perceiving that same sense of “eternal AWARENESS” to flicker and vanish utterly, etc. — and having had those with the super-potent sense of noesis, of knowing, of absolute certainty, at some point, I began to notice, “Ah, various absolutely compelling experiences that appears to answer the deepest questions of meaning, identity, Truth, Ultimate Reality, Emptiness, and the like. Had I just one, or just a few that clustered together in a close web of meaning, I, like so many others, would certainly be conditioned to hold views along these lines. However, having had so many ultra-compelling meanings arise that are yet so utterly contradictory, mutually entirely incompatible, irresolvable within a coherent ontological frame, better to not cling to any of those, and make one’s way in the world of meaning based on what seems to promote good outcomes than based on transient experiences, however compelling, but with sympathy and understanding for those who do otherwise, as such is their conditioning, just as you have your conditioning.”
w) Other comments: Interesting exercise. May it be of some use to someone. Best wishes!
1. What did you find?
An end to the need to shrink reality down to concepts or feelings. The cessation of the delusion that such a thing is possible. “WHAT IS” is beyond the mind, is given freely, and is utterly satisfying.
2. What is your general advice to seekers?
Seeking is looking. Look at your problem or mystery. Something will arise. Now look at that. Repeat.
3. Answer any or all of the following that you feel are relevant. What are your thoughts/feelings about:
a) Abiding and non-abiding awakening (i.e., knowledge of the Self/Truth vs. abiding as the Self/Truth)
Such distinctions may be useful koans for the seeker, but I have no use for them as a finder.
b) Are “Who (or what are you), whence (where did you come from), and whither (where are you going)?” fundamental questions for a seeker?
The most important question for a seeker is the one that is presenting itself to them right now. Over time a fundamental question might come into focus. I’m not willing to say which questions are fundamental and which are not.
c) Bliss
This isn’t a term that I use.
d) Doing vs. not doing
Sometimes there is doing and sometimes not. Sometimes there is ownership of doing and sometimes not. This is good to look at if one is questioning free will. I see both doing and not-doing approaches to seeking as valid provided one doesn’t take them too seriously.
e) Enlightenment (Buddhahood, Christ-consciousness)
I had an experience that was totally satisfying and ended my seeking. I call it enlightenment. I don’t know if other finders are speaking of the same thing.
f) Hypnosis (influencing another person mind-to-mind)
I influence people by speaking and listening and empathizing. I don’t have any special abilities.
g) Identity
Identities come and go. By watching their coming and going one can get a peek at what is beyond identity.
h) Individual consciousness of awareness
This isn’t a phrase that I use. I would challenge the seeker to take one of those words and examine the assumptions they are making.
i) Meditation
I use the word “meditation” when I am referring to a specific technique of focused looking. I found having a meditation technique helpful in my search.
j) No-self
The idea of no-self is helpful if you are attached to a self-idea. There is no need to take either idea too seriously. Watching the mind bounce between self and no-self gives one a clue as to what lies beyond the mind and its polarities.
k) No-thought
If a seeker is interested in no-thought then they should pursue it. My mind never stops so I had to make friends with thought. Suppressing thought did not turn out to be necessary in my journey.
l) Rapport (contacting another person mind-to-mind)
I do not have any special ability to read minds. I do strongly empathize with seekers and for me that is what rapport is.
m) Reality
For me “reality” is a utility word. If I find it useful to divide “WHAT IS” into real and unreal parts, then I do it. It’s not something that should be taken too seriously.
n) Self-Realization (peeling away fabricated layers of one’s own personality to understand the true self and hence the true nature of reality)
Of the various modes of seeking, the ones that involved looking within made the most sense to me. By ‘within’ I mean in the direction of what one identifies as self. I found that the self consisted of layers, the personality being one of the more superficial ones. I eventually uncovered a final layer of self, but it was unsatisfying; it was simply an experience that came and went like any other. My journey ended when I saw that reality could not be cornered into a single experience. Seeking self-realization is like trying to capture sunlight in your hands, and finding is like feeling the sunlight on your face knowing that it is given freely and lacks nothing.
o) Silence
Sometimes it is helpful to isolate oneself from the overstimulation of society. A silent retreat can make it easier to see what your important questions are.
p) Tension
Tension comes and goes. Is it under your control? Tension is a signal that something wants to be looked at.
q) Transmission
I found it greatly energizing to be around seekers and finders. Their honesty and determination stimulated the same in me. I cannot say if there is a deeper form of transmission than that.
r) Truth
Absolute Truth is what I wanted as a seeker. However, I found that Truth cannot be distilled into a concept or a feeling or anything graspable. Truth is ever-present. One cannot be separated from it. It cannot be sought. The mind cannot even be interested in it. What the mind is interested in is substituting the Truth with something finite and relative that can be played with.
s) What can we know for sure: What we are? What we aren’t? Other?
One can know a feeling in the moment. One can know a thought in the moment. But the contents of such things are impermanent and relative and ever-changing.
t) What is your certainty based on?
All I can say is that the seeker is no more. I am at peace regarding ultimate questions.
u) What prevents a seeker from knowing the truth?
The seeker moves in the relative world of heart and mind where nothing satisfies. The way out cannot be pointed to, but when the seeker begins to perceive the fruitlessness of searching for the absolute within the relative, a new possibility opens.
v) “You are aware prior to birth and aware after you die, so you begin with awareness, but you are not conscious of awareness.” ~ Richard Rose, The Direct-Mind Experience
I’m never sure what people mean by ‘consciousness’ or ‘awareness.’ I’d rather say ‘experience is happening.’ If life is a series of experiences, then all we know is eternal life. Anything else is imponderable.
w) Other comments:
Imagine watching an exciting magic show that never ends. Eventually one would begin to see through the illusions and be less and less enthralled by the next magic trick. One’s attention would broaden beyond the sleight of hand to include the magician and the stage and then the audience and their faces. Imagine that, instead of being disappointed, the discovery of this much larger world seems far more a miracle than anything that happened on stage.