Awakening the Above

Part I of Oholomo's spiritual journey

A record from Jan. 2020 to Jan. 2021. This cycle of transformation began with spontaneous mystical experiences of what non-dual systems often refer to as True Nature, Buddha Nature, or similar terminology, and the recognition of my identity as that (I–IV). A kundalini opening then led to the collapse of that identity and the realization of Emptiness and Non-self (V–VI). Several posts then describe the subsequent dissolution of the senses into a nondual perception of energy (VII–XIV). At the end of the cycle, these multiple perspectives became integrated as different co-existing frequencies of awakening, and steps began to be taken toward the Below (XV–XXII). While this whole series of events was kicked off by an exercise from the Headless Way, this was only the match that lit the fuse. Each of the major “breakthrough” experiences that are described below resonate with different traditions and teachings and draw upon different spiritual vocabularies.

I.

It was late January, 2020. While driving home, I was listening to a podcast about the Headless Way. The speaker was mostly was talking about the life and work of the twentieth century British mystic and philosopher Douglas Harding. But, at one point in the interview, Richard led the audience through what he called an “experiment.” I won’t repeat it here, since it’s easy enough to find this information elsewhere.

The experiment lasted only a few minutes, but something instantaneously snapped into focus as I followed along. This was not a gradual clearing of understanding, or a layer-by-layer unpeeling of the layers of an onion. It was like those Magic Eye books that were popular back in the 1990s: one minute I was looking at the world in the normal way, and then in an instant my perspective popped into a new place. It felt somehow as if I had been living my life in a VR headset totally immersed in the images on the screen, but then suddenly someone pulled the headset out a bit and revealed that what I thought were objects were really just projections.

It was just a quick glimpse and I was intrigued, but I couldn’t concentrate on it while driving. A half hour or so later, though, I was in the jacuzzi at the gym, and I thought I’d give the experiment another try. When I did, it snapped back much more strongly, and I suddenly fell into a void.

Not only my vision but sounds and sensations and my thoughts, too, were taking place inside an expansive, blank, empty, dark space. Visual perceptions entered through a portal like a big all-seeing eye, but they seemed flat and unreal. Audio perceptions came in on a different stream. Body sensations were on a third channel; thoughts on a fourth. My awareness switched between the four streams, perceiving one at a time as separate bubbles in the vast emptiness: Vision! Sound! Sensation! Thought! Vision! Sound! Sensation! Thought!

The realization came that this is how the brain works, but that I’ve been reifying these perceptions and thoughts for my whole life, objectifying everything, and identifying with them. Including my body…. I’ve thought of myself as an object in the field “out there.” Now, I see that actually all of the “out there” is actually unfolding “in here,” in my awareness.

Where “I” am in all of this is unclear. Am “I” the empty space? The thought comes that this must be how I originally perceived the world as a newborn infant, before I understood what “I” means. I must have learned over time to create an illusion of a self by linking the visual perception, the sensations, and the thoughts together. I then must have gotten so immersed in the self I had created that I forgot how I had built it in the first place.

The realization arises that I am seeing what I’ve read about for decades in books by Buddhists and other spiritual people, that this what is meant by “satori.” I also realize everything I’ve ever done in meditation has been totally wrong, focused on seeking something “out there” somewhere, when it’s all right here all along. It is so simple, so easy to see that there’s nowhere to go. It is so clear that everything is already perfect just the way it is. I feel like I could sit here observing the bubbles and the emptiness for hours, effortlessly. In fact, it’s all I would like to do.

I laugh out loud. All of those cheesy Zen sayings I’ve assumed are metaphors — and mostly have written off long ago — are actually true in a very literal way. It’s all so obvious! Of course there is no path and no goal; of course the truth is in front of my nose, closer than my breath; of course this is my original face before my parents were born.

Maybe 30–40 min into the experience, things start getting a bit less vivid. Vision remains the clearest channel, but even that starts becoming harder for me to stay with. Eventually, I’m back to “normal,” but a queer feeling of distance and detachment lasts the rest of the evening, and all the next day. And there’s a seemingly permanent shift in perspective, ever so slightly, like I can now see a frame around the world.

I find myself very much am wanting to go back and explore the void. But at the same time that I want to return, there is no longer a feeling that there’s anything I need to attain. There is no need to strive for any kind of spiritual insight.

II.

Two days after experiencing the emptiness, I woke up in the middle of night. I lay in bed, and for about 30–40 min, the void is clear again. Again, the forms are coming in on different channels. The tiny specs of light inside my closed eyelids have never been so bright. I feel totally present. I am here. I am awake.

But who is this “I” exactly? It’s plainly obvious that nothing coming into my awareness on any of the channels are “me.” And there’s nothing here that’s not part one of the channels. I see clearly that I must be, and I must have always been, the void itself. Bodies and forms and thoughts and selves have come and gone for lifetime after lifetime. But I — The Void — have always been here, still, watching everything.

Not only that, but it’s now obvious that I am also the very same Void that is looking through everyone else’s eyes as well. That we are all end-points or sensors for the same, universal Void. Seven billion manifestations of the same vast and infinite Buddha Nature, looking out upon itself. That we are all the eyes of the Great Spirit. God’s eyes.

I realize clearly that all separate beings, including what I called “myself,” are interchangeable entities that don’t ultimately matter. These are meaningless projections, and it really makes no difference whether or not any one of us is here at all. After sitting with this realization for a while, there’s a sense of unease that starts to rise up seemingly from far, far away. It starts to get more and more vivid, until it starts intruding into the Void, growing into a full blown panic.

The sense of self comes rushing back: Being the Void may be dangerous! If I can’t snap out of this and come back to my self, I could lose my sanity! Maybe I’ve already lost my mind! If I can’t be myself, then I could lose my identity, my family, my job! I could lose everything I love and depend upon! The fear draws me out of the Void, and I’m back in my bed.

Eventually, I fall back to sleep. Over the next few days the effects of this seeing linger, but I’m not sure where it leaves me. I have seen the cosmic Buddha, the Dharmakaya itself. Looking back, it seems like such an important shift in perspective, but it also seems like it maybe was an opportunity that was missed. Did I lose my one and only chance because of fear? Will I ever be back there again? What does it all mean? What’s happening to me?

III.

For months after the two-part awakening experience, there have been some lingering side-effects. Strangely, my eyes seem to fall into two dimensional vision on a frequent basis, the whole visual field becoming flat like a paint-by-numbers or a stained glass window. I also feel a bit absent-minded: head in the clouds, and unable to really focus on detail-oriented work for very long. Several projects that I was very focused on no longer seem important, and I have let go of them without thinking twice. Also, although I had previously been very invested in following politics, that interest disappeared overnight.

Those are pretty minor, perhaps inconsequential, side-effects, which are outweighed by much more important positive shifts. In general, I feel like negative emotions or thoughts roll off me much more easily than before — in conversations with my wife or at work, for example. I used to be accosted by a feeling of anxiety on a regular basis, many times per day, and that has completely stopped. I’ve been hit a few times with strong waves of elation or bliss, and at others with strong feelings of compassion. As I walk around, the dance of light through the trees, a bed of flowers, a mailbox, even a piece of trash on the side of the road are all so much more vivid and beautiful than ever before. In my interactions with people, it seems that I am more able to listen and be present for others since I’m not constantly reacting personally to things, or planning out what I’m going to say.

My interest in spiritual practice has also greatly increased, become just about the only thing I care about. For about six weeks after the awakening, I was focused on trying to reproduce the breakthrough experience. On a regular basis throughout the day I kept reminding myself (or being reminded) of the Headless perspective, and I spent about an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon practicing the “experiments” introduced by the Headless Way website.

However, by about mid-March, I stopped actively trying to recreate the awakening experiences I had had, and began just sitting and observing sights, sounds, feelings, and thoughts in an open and neutral way. Once I did this, it allowed me to open up of new realizations. Over the next three and a half months, I experienced a number of deeper and deeper revelations that seemed to come in waves.

During this time, I started consuming a lot of materials associated with Headless Way, in order to try to figure out what was this was all about. I also joined and participated in the Headless Way virtual meetups over Zoom, which I found to be extremely helpful in keeping headlessness on the front burner and in working out some of the implications of the experience. Ultimately, however, this group seemed a bit too single-minded, and I stopped attending after a few months.

I began to read books and listen to some speakers on Zen, Advaita, and other forms of non-duality, which were never things I was very interested in before but which I’m finding to be relevant as context or “second opinions” on what it was that I have experienced. I’m not looking for teachings or guidance, but for confirmation of the insights that spontaneously arose. Over the weeks and months, as I have kept practicing Headless exercises, I have come to see clearly though my own experience how the classical nondual “pointers” are literally true from within the Headless perspective. These are some of the lines of inquiry or contemplation that have led to especially powerful realizations:

• I am

• All there is is now, here, this

• The whole universe is inside of me

• The only thing that exists is the present moment

• I am the only one here — there are no others

• I’m not living my life, I’m just watching

• Where I’ve been looking from is what I’ve been looking for

Reflecting on each of these produced powerful shifts in my consciousness, mystical experiences in their own right. Each felt like it was unlocking another door of understanding. Looking back, I’d say that on the whole, the primary effect has been a shift in identity away from being an individual bounded person to being the awareness in which the person, and everything else, is unfolding.

I see clearly that I am the One. I am Everything. I am the Void. I am the Universe.

IV.

For five months from time of the awakening experiences, I remained pretty much in isolation. I stripped back my work to the bare minimum, and stopped a lot of my usual activities. I found myself spending 2 to 3 hours a day in meditation, inquiry, and Headless exercises, absorbed in everything that was being revealed to me.

Throughout this time, I kept oscillating between the feeling that I was “getting it” and then “losing it.” If only I could hold it steady enough, I thought, I could really imbibe the wisdom from these experiences. But I wasn’t able to figure out how to do that. It was clear that profound shifts had taken place, but I constantly wondered whether I was still moving forward, whether there would be more realizations to come. I had the feeling that there might be, but also had the nagging fear that I might be slipping back into “the old me” and losing my new perspective.

This oscillation came to a head at the end of June, as it became to me clear that I was going to have to have a confrontation with someone at work. The details of this interpersonal exchange are not significant, but I began to feel anxious about the inevitability of this unpleasant meeting. For five months, I had protected myself from the world. I had had virtually no negative thoughts or emotional experiences, and the return of the old feeling of anxiety being back in my body was surprising and unwelcome. I thought I had moved beyond feeling anxiety — or anything negative, actually — and seeing that I wasn’t was disappointing. More than disappointing, the fact I was anxious about such a minor confrontation made me more concerned that my awakening was slipping away and that I was backsliding into identification with my small previous self.

One afternoon, when I headed out for my daily hour-long walk, this cycle of thinking really started to ramp up. Anxious thoughts began to spiral more and more out of control. The fear of the confrontation and the fear of “losing it” intensified into a generalized fear about everything. I even started to panic for no reason about the parked cars I was walking by on the side of the road. I was aware that my heart was pounding, and my body was all jittery. I’ve never had a panic attack, but this must be what it is like.

Where is all of this coming from?, I asked myself. And just then it hit me that, actually, all of this anxiety — and all the anxiety I’ve ever experienced in my life — is really one core fear: the fear of lack of control.

And, where does this fear of not being in control come from? A number of memories of events in early childhood started coming up. It became clear that this is a pattern that has been in play for basically all of my life. I’ve always been fearful of not being in control.

But, I asked myself, have I ever actually been in control? I mean, have I ever actually had control over any detail or anything in my life? I’ve had a great life filled with good fortune, but has any of it actually been my own doing?

It suddenly became crystal clear that, while there has been an illusion of control and decision-making, actually life has always unfolded in ways that are mysterious and unpredictable. Any notion of control has been a justification after the fact, never an actuality.

It was clear as day to me that this is true, but the realization struck even deeper fear in my heart. Accepting this lack of control means relinquishing the ability to influence how my life goes… how my kids’ lives go… even if we live or die. It means relinquishing the ability to influence how events unfold… if my awakening stays or goes… even if I remain sane or have lost my mind.

All of it is beyond my control, I realize. But, if I’m not in control, who or what is? Can I just trust in the Void? Can I rely on karma? God? I feel myself grasping for something — anything — that I can be sure about. I even start to bargain a bit: I’ll surrender to the lack of control if you promise it will be ok. But who is “you”? Who am I talking to? Is there anybody out there?

It’s clear to me that the answer to all of these questions is simply “who knows?” That there are no guarantees of anything. That even trying to be certain about this question is in itself a form of trying to be in control.

Just as I this realization was sinking in, a thundering voice in my head clearly spoke to me: “STAND ASIDE, THIS IS HAPPENING.” Whose voice is that? I have no idea, but I think I have no choice here but to give up control and give in to whatever process is taking place.

V.

I was pretty emotionally raw after the voice, but I felt like I was on the precipice of some kind of transformation — good or bad, who knew.

Two days later, another major breakthrough experience occurred. I went out for my regular afternoon walk. Immediately as I left the house, I started to feel a tingling sensation in my body. It became stronger as I walked, and after about 10 minutes it had become quite pronounced. The sensations coalesced into an stream of energy running up my back and up my neck to the crown of my head. I started to feel like I was sending off sparks from the top of my head into the atmosphere, like a Fourth of July sparkler. I felt completely alive, brimming over with the energy of life.

My walk lasted for an hour. During that time, as I looked around me, I saw that everything everywhere was also part of this same flow of energy. The sun was a huge source of energy, like a power generator for all of nature; the trees and flowers were bundles of energy bursting forth out of the ground; the birds and squirrels were sparks of energy that flitted about; every color I saw was popping and humming with electricity and life.

It was clear to me that all of these were multifaceted manifestations of the same primordial energy that created the universe. The Big Bang that is continuing to unfold on a cosmic scale. Here, I could see only one small corner of the dance of the universe playing out, but I could perceive that what was taking place all around me and within my very own body was all part of this huge cosmic event — that we are all part of the same process of being and becoming.

The energy flow upwards through my body became increasingly intense. My body literally began bouncing off the ground with each step I took, like I was going to launch into the air. Every sound I heard was like a mini Big Bang going off in my ears. A dog barked… BOOM! A bird chirped… BOOM! Even a thought going off silently inside my own head… BOOM!

A car went by… BOOM!, and I instantaneously understood how human beings have harnessed the creative energy of the universe in the form of machines that roar and churn and propel forth even more creation and becoming. I heard a person speak… BOOM!, and I understood how whole cultures and societies are all part of the Big Bang’s energetic dance. I had a thought… BOOM!, and saw how all of humanity’s ideas, fears, anxieties, dreams, and aspirations are all at their core emanating from the same energy. Each BOOM! is all part of the same cosmic vibration, part of the cosmic play of Shakti.

I saw that there was nothing apart from this energy; nothing that was not part of this dance. I even saw how birth and death are two sides of the same BOOM coming and going, and indistinguishable from one another. Death and decay are part of the same dance of being and becoming.

My body shaking and my heart pounding, I was filled with excitement and exuberance. Everything that exists and that can be conceived, without exception, is part of this whole happening. And I’m here seeing, feeling, perceiving it all, while also completely inseparable from its unfolding.

VI.

Something shifted after ht kundalini opening. These changes seem impossible to communicate, but I am going to try to capture them.

The first thing that I noticed was the feeling that my Headless “experiments” no longer seemed to be working as they were before. Or, rather, the language I had been using seemed to no longer make sense for my actual experience. Since my initial awakening, I had been describing my realization in terms of seeing that objects “out there” actually are located “in here” within my awareness. I resonated with the common Advaita metaphor of awareness being a “movie screen” on which an illusory “film” of life is being played. Most of all, I felt that while I lost my sense of being my “small self,” I increasingly felt identified with the “big self” of the Void or of Awareness.

All of this collapsed in the aftermath of the kundalini opening. The notions of here and there, screen and film, small and big selves have completely lost their coherence. These differences — which previously had been so meaningful and important to me—have been completely flattened out, so to speak.

Gone is the feeling that “I” am some kind of stable consciousness, no matter how expansive or spacious. Gone is the notion that awareness is a “container” or a “location” for experiences to unfold within. Gone, in fact, is the idea that awareness is even an identifiable thing separable from experiences. Awareness, consciousness, the One, or the Void, is no longer the witness of phenomena. They all now seem themselves to merely be disconnected fragments of mental phenomena, fantasies briefly flickering in and out of existence.

What remains might perhaps be best described as a single flow of experience. Sometimes this experience takes the form of thoughts; sometimes it’s sensations; sometimes it’s sensory experiences; sometimes it’s a feeling of being lost in a narrative; sometimes a feeling of waking up from the dream; sometimes it’s a notion of being some kind of self; sometimes a notion of not being a self. None of the specifics of what is experienced seems to matter. It’s all always part of a unitary experience, a whole kaleidoscopic happening.

These experiences are not arising “in” awareness. Each experience arises without being “in” or “at” any place in particular, and without being “seen” by any particular witness. Or, if there is a feeling of any particular experience being “in” or “at” or “seen,” then that feeling is itself nothing but additional experience that is arising. Any attempt to locate, see, or explain what’s happening is simply further interpretation about the experience, just more arisings.

Furthermore, although this whole flow seems to be made up of discrete moments or objects, when I look at it more closely, it all blends into a seamless, unresolvable swirl. I find it impossible to separate any one aspect of experience from another in this flow. Each time I try to grab onto one thing in order to see it clearly, it’s already gone. Each time I try to investigate some individual thing more closely, it seems to dissolve into a fuzzy cloud of energy.

Every experience in this flow is revealed to be a mystery, but the realization of its mysteriousness is itself only another experience in the flow. It’s like all the ways of thinking that used to be there before awakening and all the ways of thinking that were there in my “Headless phase” all got swirled together in the blender, broken up into tiny pieces that are now all mixed together into a big collage where form and Emptiness are undifferentiated and non-hierarchical.

I’m not sure what any of this means, but I’ve lost interest in overarching explanations or metaphysical statements. Everything feels up in the air, and that’s all ok.

VII.

Reflecting back on what I’ve written up to this point, I can see now that the big experiences I’ve been describing in previous posts have been gateways. Each mystical experience was powerful and transformative, and seemed so important and valuable at the time, but each was also just a passing experience in its own right. They may have made me more sensitive to seeing what is happening in the moment, but there never was a need to change anything about that happening. Although there is a seeming unfolding over time, there really has been nowhere to go all along.

I sit out on the back deck with a cup of coffee in the morning. It’s a “do nothing” kind of meditation, just observing what’s happening. Just being with whatever is arising and letting my mind wander wherever it goes.

The arising is constant: every waking moment there’s an unrelenting flow of forms. These sounds, sights, body sensations, thoughts, smells and tastes, no longer seem like separate channels. They all bleed into one another, blurring into one. A chaotic symphony made up of various parts that are all united in playing the same song. Some days the symphony is dominated more by thoughts of this kind or that, some days by certain kinds of sounds. Some days I get drawn into some aspect or another and am less conscious of the unity of the whole. Some days the unity is all I can notice. None of this is in my control, and none of it has any impact on the flow or the unity itself, which is always there for the seeing whenever I look.

It seems that everything in this symphony is made up of or is a manifestation of energy. When I look closely, listen carefully, feel sensitively, focus in on anything, it all seems to be buzzing. No fireworks, just a low steady hum of life everywhere.

No object in this flow of experience is steady or stable. Whenever I try to isolate a single form or experience, I can’t hold onto it. The more I try to concentrate on it, the faster it dissolves into energy. Every sound that hits my ear is already gone before I can capture it. My eyes dance around all shapes, refusing to hold steady for even a moment. Thoughts are just as elusive, mysteriously arising, assembling into narratives, and then disappearing just as quickly.

I’ve read the Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) countless times in the past, and it’s always just been a conceptual experience for me. But the other day I picked it up again and the first chapter astounded me as the most simple and clear description possible of what I’m experiencing now.

If I try to look at the whole of manifestation all I can see is specific forms, but if I try to look at any one form all I can see is its participation in the whole. This totality can’t be pinned down, can’t be named or conceptualized, but it is inseparable from all of the individual things with names and concepts. The non-separateness of the two, both sides of the coin being actually one and the same, that is “the mystery within the mystery.”

VIII.

Whenever I close my eyes, I see a flurry of lights of various colors dancing around. One day, I noticed that I see these lights with eyes open in a darker room or even in the shadows during daytime. From there, it wasn’t long till I noticed them even in full daylight, particularly if staring at a blank wall or single-colored object. There’s never just one color — it’s always sparkling stardust, flitting about like TV snow.

Later, I noticed that when I look directly at a light (of any kind, but candles and headlights are particularly clear), there’s never just one point of light, but a whole dancing aura of little sparks. Sometimes they seem freeze into snow crystals.

Also, don’t certain colors seem to have a pulsating quality to them? Throbbing? It’s particularly strong for me with purple and pink for some reason, but reds and oranges and yellow all have a particular glow, illuminated from within like hot magma.

Looking out at the whole field of vision, I see movement everywhere. Nothing is ever still, ever solid, ever concrete. Even when the objects I’m looking at are supposedly still, the whole display consists of millions of pixels, all blipping, pulsing, flashing. Constantly shifting like a kaleidoscope or a fractal.

I don’t think this is any special way of seeing, but just how things always would have been if I had ever stopped to notice. Now that I do notice, the jig is up. What once seemed so real is seen clearly to be just a virtual reality simulation: projections on a jumbotron screen being assembled into objects by the mind.

Often when I sit with my eyes closed, or in bed before falling asleep, I let myself relax into that sparkling visual light display. Not examining closely, but just letting it all flow however it wants to, like I’m passively watching a screen saver.

I relax my sense of hearing, not trying to listen to anything in particular, but just letting the sounds roll by. And I can hear underneath the sounds a slight hiss, a constant drone that is always present even in so-called silence.

I similarly relax my body, not trying to feel anything special, but just noticing what’s there. And I always find a gentle buzz underneath all the other sensations. You might say it’s a flow of energy perhaps, or just the feeling of the vitality of the physical body.

When I really sink down into a relaxed state, the visual sparkles, the auditory hum, and the buzz of body sensations seem to blend together. Words fail here, but it seems like there’s a single energy field out there that’s being picked up in slightly different ways through the various sensory organs. These sensory inputs normally get “congealed” or “constructed” into objects and sounds and sensations, but underneath all of these manifestations, it’s only ever just the same unified, diffused, and vibrant energy field.

IX.

I notice that I can feel my whole body as a single field of sensation. Almost always, this field is laid out spatially. If I’m sitting, it seems like the sensations in my feet are “down there.” If I lie in bed and look out at my feet, those sensations feel like they are happening at eye level. Likewise, sensations on the back of my head feel like they are above and behind.

Above and behind what? Above and behind who?

Even when I don’t feel like a self “here” looking out from some fixed point in space, there still seems to be a directionality or spatiality that is fused into my experience of body sensations. I find it’s also true with hearing, where most sounds inherently and obviously seem to be coming from left or right, in front or behind.

Most of the time, orienting in terms of spatial directions seems quite baked into the process of perception. Like my sensory perceptions are being structured into a 3D representation of the world at a very deep level in my brain. Every once in a while, though, I have experienced this sense of directionality drop away. Then, it’s just sensation or sound that’s happening nowhere in particular, or rather everywhere all at once. There’s no discreet feeling of up or down, left or right. Everything is just here.

It’s very strange and somewhat wonderful whenever I notice that happening. It feels like I’m getting a brief glimpse of how the mind puts things together to construct the world.

Smell is completely different, though, isn’t it? Smell just hits all at once. There’s never any left or right, up or down. The sensory field of smell is blank one second, and completely full the next. It comes out of nowhere. Vision, hearing, and body sensations are constantly present, but smell may be blank for hours at a time. Then, suddenly, the whole dimension of smell magically appears. For a moment, it’s full and present and completely entrancing. But then — poof! — it’s gone again.

Isn’t thought just like this too? Coming from nowhere; existing nowhere in particular; suddenly taking over and coloring everything; just as suddenly disappearing again. Just as mysterious and magical, and just as completely entrancing!

X.

Looking quickly, of course I see it’s a stop sign. I can effortlessly recognize it even from 100 yards away. But, if I stop and look, what is it really?

I try to look closely, but I find that my eyes can’t take it in. They dance around and around. First a flash of red. Then, a nanosecond later, part of the letter S. But, then I’m torn away from the visual field to notice sound. Right behind that, the white edge of the sign comes through, but immediately off to attend to a body sensation. Another sound. The word “STOP.” Another sound. Then the glow of red again. The word “POTS.”

All of this happens in an almost-simultaneous instant, so rapidly that it’s impossible to narrate in real time. The more I stare, the more wildly the scene dances. Now the sign is shifting, pulsing, changing color. Different parts of it flashing in and out. My eyes darting wildly. The more I try to keep it stable, the more the motion becomes obvious, unmissable.

Is this actually a stop sign, in the end, or is it a messy swirl of sensory perceptions? Is it a solid thing out there in the world, or a loosely differentiated field of energy I am constantly working to snap into focus? Everything I see or hear or feel is like this if I stop to notice… utterly unpindownable.

But yet, this mind is always a pattern finder. The brain scans the scene piece by piece and snaps it all together, assembling perceptions into objects. It’s fun to watch this process happening, and especially when I can catch where it fails.

Like when the mind sees things that aren’t there. Looking out at the tress, I often “see” faces. Eyes. Fish. All kinds of things looking back at me.

Or, when the mind struggles to interpret unfamiliar patterns correctly. The other day, I laughed as my mind tried and failed to make sense of that red blob in the neighbor’s yard. What was it anyway? My mind had all kinds of guesses that all turned out to be false. It turned out to be a big red inflatable pool toy blowing in the wind unexpectedly in someone’s yard. But chaos reigned as my brain tried to figure that one out!

Seeking and finding patterns seems to be one of the mind’s primary jobs. And, it is constantly offering up these interpretations. This is often helpful, but often not. And seeing the gaps and disconnects between the sensory inputs and the pattern recognition just goes to show how provisional ALL my interpretations are.

XI.

A lot of my recent posts have been about sensory experience. When I closely watch how things are arising, I can notice how every moment slips away before it can be grasped. I can notice clearly that there is constant change, a constant passing away of all phenomena. Constant death.

But, then again, I can also notice how every moment brings something new into experience. I can notice clearly that there is constant becoming, phenomena constantly coming into existence. Constant birth.

What I can’t notice is any of the phenomena sticking around. There is nothing but impermanence. Birth and death and birth, every moment, endlessly.

This is the pulse of the universe, the vibration of reality. I don’t mean that in a metaphysical or philosophical way. It’s a lived experience that is clear as day whenever I choose to notice how my perception and thoughts actually work.

XII.

Back in late January, it seemed like there was a precise moment when I woke up. It felt like I had been asleep, stuck in a dream for 45 years, and then an alarm went off and I shot up in bed, awake and fully present for the first time.

For a while, I thought I had to hold on to that awakeness, to be really careful not to fall back asleep. Now, it is Fall, and I have realized that awakening isn’t something happens in a one-and-done kind of way. It’s not a single or a final event, a state that can be captured, recreated, or preserved. Rather, both falling asleep and waking up seem to be happening all the time, cyclically repeating many times per day.

I might be plugging away at my computer answering emails, caught up in busy thought-trains coming and going for an hour or more. But then, something (a sound, a feeling, a sip of tea) will snap me out of it. I suddenly realize “I am here; I am present.”

If I’m relaxing on the deck or out on a walk instead of working, this cycle might happen much more often. I drift off into a thought or a day dream for minutes or even just seconds, and then become present over and over again.

I just wrote “I am here; I am present,” but there isn’t really an “I” or an awareness watching this happen. There’s just a feeling of presence for everything that’s happening at this moment. It’s just Now. Here. This.

Sometimes, a memory comes about how I was not present just a moment ago, or a thought comes about being aware of this awakeness… but then that’s just thinking starting up for another round of the cycle.

I think I now see that the idea isn’t to wake up for once and for all, but rather to continually wake up over and over again. To wake up in every different kind of setting, within every different kind of environment, during every different kind of action. To awaken while relaxing on the porch, while on a walk, while writing an email, while talking with the kids, while watching TV, while taking out the trash, while scooping dog poop, while in pain, while giving birth, while dying. To “wake down” into—and amidst—every facet of this human life.

Of course, one can’t possibly live out every dimension of humanity in one lifetime. So, this must be an endless process of discovery undergone by an infinite number of beings across an infinity of time and space. A fractal-like collective process as each awakening discovers the possibilities and opportunities for infinitely more.

XIII.

My experience is filled with ever-moving visual stimuli, ever-changing sounds, ever-vibrating body sensations. Thoughts come and go, and occasionally smells and tastes too.

But underneath all that, very subtle feelings are also coming into focus. It’s all under the radar and normally unseen by the mind. But, if I sit quietly and tune in, I can feel them bubbling away just beneath the surface. Buzzes and and vibes that don’t have names and that lie beyond the normal five senses. Slight flickers that are impossible to pin down or describe or even fully experience. Unformed impulses, desires, intuitions, that have not yet coalesced into something tangible. A formless realm of possibility that has yet to emerge.

Do these mean anything? Do they carry useful information? I’m not sure, but I’m starting to listen.

XIV.

Who knew that anxiety could be a mystical experience? The other night, a complex situation with one of my kids triggered intense anxiety right before I went to bed. I have not felt anxiety — or really any negative emotion to speak of — in months, and I was completely unprepared for it.

I tossed and turned all night, my body wracked with stress. When I was conscious, I was present to all of the physical sensations and the mental dimensions of the experience, and I could perceive it all clearly as a flow of energy. When I did start to drift into sleep, I watched as it all dissolved into chaotic flashes of more subtle phenomena. Dreams would begin form in front of my eyes, the random flurry of energy crystallizing into coherent pictures. But then, rather than entering deeper into sleep, I would be ripped back into wakeful presence.

These fluctuations repeated over and over again all night long. When morning came, my meditation was shaky, with lots of distractions caused by thoughts and stories. My first reaction was that this all seemed so overblown, all such unnecessary overreaction. Wasn’t I done with this sort of thing? Have I come crashing back down into my “old self” — the self of entanglement, emotion, and personal narratives. Have I lost the “nondual” or “flow” perspective?

No, wait, all of that is just thoughts! Instead of jumping to any conclusions, let me instead look, and feel, and see what’s here. Let me just be patient and see what emerges from this experience.

Over the next few days, a series of revelations begin to come forth one after the other. All kinds of memories of the past come into the foreground, mostly concerning difficult relationships, many long-forgotten and some long-repressed. I can see clearly my entanglements with others, what they had done and what I had done to create these troubles. I don’t just see, but also feel. The act of retelling how these snarls were created, and to hold these stories with empathy, seems to allow them to resolve themselves. As they spontaneously unravel, I feel a release. A peace as each knot comes untied.

Far from crashing down into an old self, I see there is a new mode of being in the world that is wanting to emerge. Something new that wants to be explored that can’t be done from the impersonal equanimity of the Void or from the impermanent fluidity of the flow. A new mode of engagement based on empathy for the storytelling self. A new way of interacting with others that heals rather than entangles.

I don’t know yet what this new mode is all about, but I am welcoming it, exploring what it feels like, and beginning to ask how I might embody it in my life.

XV.

For over four decades at least, I experienced a third-person world. Objects were “out there” in the physical realm. My body was also an object, navigating among all the others. My mental and emotional experiences took place inside yet another object, my brain.

Then, with the initial awakening, I experienced the first-person world. There is only consciousness. All objects — including my body — existed inside of my awareness. There was nothing outside of me because literally the entire universe was within me.

Of course, people who live in the third person mode say that the physical world is the ultimate truth, while spiritual people say it is “a dream” and prefer to hang out in Awareness. But, from where I sit, I don’t have enough evidence to call it either way. The third person perspective seems to be undeniably real (which is why I won’t step in front of a truck), but the first person also seems undeniable (which is why I can see that the truck is inside my consciousness even while I’m avoiding stepping in front of it).

Now, though, I’m experiencing something new: a “second person” mode opening up. In the third person I’m an object among objects, in the first there’s just me. But in the second person, everything is connected, entangled, swirdled together with everything else. There are no independent objects and no universal me, just webs of interdependence, relationships within relationships, connections upon connections. I am my relationships. In a sense, I am you. Or rather, you and I are both “we.” This mode is just as real, just as undeniable, and just as important as the other two modes.

XVI.

A thought experiment: From the standpoint of nonduality, only This exists. I am the only consciousness here, a Buddha “awareing” the cosmos into existence. The “others” I interact with are appearing sometimes as suffering beings, sometimes as wayward demons causing suffering, and sometimes as bodhisattvas here to help alleviate suffering. But these “others” are all just apparitions within my dream.

I can’t experience it first-hand, but I can also imagine how all this appears from another’s perspective. In that Buddha’s dreamed universe, they are the only conscious being. What I call “me” in my cosmos appears in theirs as just another “other.” I can ask myself, do I appear to them as a suffering being, as a demon, or as a bodhisattva?

I know I’ve read about “manifestation bodies” of the Buddhas many times before, but never understood how simple it all is. Buddhas in one world are constantly manifesting as bodhisattvas in billions of other worlds simultaneously. And, although we can’t ever experience it first-hand, we always have a choice about how we are showing up.

XVII.

My earlier posts have described a number of transitions that took place this year. First, I was a physical self living in the conventional world. But then I awakened to the fact that I am the Void, an emptiness or pure awareness that is witnessing everything happening. Later that framework collapsed and everything became a flow of experience, a constantly changing and morphing energy. And, more recently, all of that collapsed again into a framework of relational empathy and understanding.

From my vantage point today in December, all of these frameworks appear as equally viable perspectives or viewpoints that are available to me. They are all modes through which I can fluidly operate and engage with the world.

I can see how an irrefutable case could be made for each of these frames, and have heard certain teachers or authors opine that one or another is the ultimate truth. (For example, arguing that it’s all just happening in the brain, or that it all is just happening in Awareness, etc.) I have been there myself. I can easily see how one can get fixated on a particular frame, making it a worldview that supersedes all others.

For a while, I was compelled to seek out “framelessness,” to find a perspective beyond all perspectives. But, in my experience, no such resting place can be found. Any framelessness that might be discovered would itself be just another frame.

I’ve realized that it’s best to leave the question of ultimate truth as an unsolvable mystery. I am much more interested in the phenomenology than the ontology. I am interested in closely examining what different frames feel like and look like. What can I do with them, what are they useful for, how can they help? What new perspectives, new truths, and new abilities do they reveal?

Rather than searching for the single ultimate truth that ends the journey once and for all, I am interested in exploring as many of the possible destinations as I can. Rather than framing, constant reframing.

XVIII.

For many months now, I’ve been “tuning in,” or being aware, or being present in a particular way. I didn’t realize it was “a particular way” until just recently when things started to shift

In hindsight, I’d say that I was previously much more oriented around my head. I prioritized vision and hearing, and body sensations seemed to be happen “down there.” Recently, though, I’m paying more attention to body sensations, particularly around my heart, belly, and pelvis. And I’m noticing that I’m starting to feel primarily oriented around this area, and my vision and hearing are somehow “up there.”

As I shift back and forth between the head-oriented and torso-oriented awareness, I notice a subtle change in the overall feeling tone. When prioritizing vision and hearing, awareness or presence feels alert. It seems seems crisper, sharper, and clearer. When prioritizing body sensations, though, presence feels more relaxed. Everything seems to be slightly warmer, slightly fuzzier, slightly fuller. It’s like the difference between digital music and old vinyl.

XIX.

I’ve heard people talk about the process of embodiment, whereby awakening descends from an initial location in the head, down to the heart and hara. I’m starting to agree. In my experience, there has been for a year a sense of expansion of awareness/consciousness that largely was centered in my vision and hearing. Body sensations were there as well, but these were like a somewhat uniform field of buzzy electric vibrations.

But now, I can feel a deeper level of sensations underneath that uniform field. There’s a cluster or concentration of sensation that is centered in the middle of my chest, and another is in the lower abdomen between the solar plexus and the pelvic bowl. These feel like energy centers, concentrations of body sensations that are interacting with my emotions and feelings. I can see what people have been talking about when referring to chakras or the three dantian.

The sense of presence that previously was primarily located in my head and in my visual and auditory perception is becoming more full-bodied. It’s not like there’s a solid material physical body taking up space. But, “being present” is now definitely more than just seeing and hearing vastly. It’s also sensing in a full-bodied way. When I relax into it, the body becomes like an instrument, resonating with my experience of whatever is in awareness.

XX.

How much effort to put into practice? Recently, I felt motivated to practice more intentionally. Previously I was sitting an hour and walking an hour per day, but I found myself sitting quite easily for three hours or more. Instead of just relaxing and maintaining an open awareness, I found myself motivated to do more directed inquiry. Instead of my usual “sitting on the back porch with a cup of coffee,” I found myself “doing meditation.”

In these sessions, things really started to shake up. Bright lights, sudden changes in head pressure, reality itself starting to pulse in and out of existence, intense excitement in the body, heart pounding out of my chest at certain points. I often felt like something huge was about to happen.

But, as this went on for a week or so, I also saw myself getting more goal-oriented about achieving certain experiences, clinging to what was coming up during meditation. In daily life off the cushion, I began to notice I was feeling more detached, less connected with people and my surroundings. So, I eased off quite a bit, back to just two hours a day, and letting go of any thoughts about goals or making effort. The experience during practice became more sweet, more about beauty and joy. And there was more fullness of presence and heart during the rest of the day.

In the last few weeks I’m back to a gentle groove. I do sit in the morning and walk in the afternoon, but I don’t really follow any technique. I start with an intention to be open and to welcome whatever is coming, and then I just watch and listen and feel. It’s a sense of open-mindedness but also open-heartedness. Like I’m plugged in, turned on, and fully awake for whatever is coming, even while knowing there’s nowhere to go.

XXI.

While sitting, subtle sensations sometimes arise that make me feel like a “me.” Sometimes it’s a thought, but just as often it’s a feeling in my chest or a sensation in my head or throat. It’s like my mind is grabbing onto these fleeting sensory experiences and identifying with them, constructing a feeling of being a self on the fly.

The other day I turned toward these selfing patterns and really welcomed them to emerge. Just then, a gentle tenderness for myself arose from my heart area. This feeling of self-love then turned outward and became love for all the world. Not just for other beings, but for all things. All sensations and perceptions even. Love and kindness and openness to every instant of vision, hearing, feeling, and thinking.

It’s happened a few more times since. It’s like there’s a source or fountain of love locked away somewhere inside, which comes forth when the processes of self-making are welcomed instead of repressed.

XXII.

Just shy of a year after the first awakening experience that started it all, I had a strange vision. A visual flash of a jaguar, an indigenous Amerindian woman, and a waterfall in succession. Normally I wouldn’t make too much of a stray thought like this, but they seemed both uncannily clear and eerily unworldly, as if I was dreaming while I’m awake.

Shortly after that, a sudden impulse arose to embrace the earth. It’s wintertime and the ground is frozen, but I had a strong impulse to take my clothes off and lie in the grass looking up at the sky. There’s no particular significance to that image, but I bent over and touched the ground with my hand, and it felt very important somehow.

That night there were storm clouds and big flashes of lightning. The sky was a surreal deep red. There was a thrill in being surrounded by the night, and a feeling that the clouds and trees were conscious.

I can feel something coming… something wanting to open.