Often we mistake ideas as reality. As Michael McAlister reminds us, “The map is not the territory”. Through a practice such as meditation, when our mind becomes still, ideas become visible. We see outside of them, and their grip loosens. It’s at this place that we gain access to reality. There we realise our ideas are just that. Ideas. They are not facts or certainty, just one possible path. When we let go of ideas and concepts, we live in the moment and the world opens.
You have an idea in mind. A specific place, time, or outcome. You can’t remember why it came to mind, but it’s now your internal plan and your external story. Whenever asked about what’s going on, you fall back on this story. It becomes easier and easier to tell. As this happens, you begin investing more into the outcome of this idea turned plan. You begin holding on as tight as possible. Rapidly, it’s gone from an idea to part of your story, your identity. With this, unknowingly, your options have gone from unlimited to 1. You now live and work in an unconscious blinker mode. No longer living in the present, but putting off all happiness to complete your idea come identity.
Along the way, opportunities come along, but of course, they are missed or filtered out as ‘not the plan’. You’re now holding on to this idea so tight that it’s become your reality and you see no other way. Out of nowhere, all of a sudden, things start looking shaky, and the plan begins to crack. You begin hurting, feeling like you’ve been physically wounded.
Sitting on your cushion, as you do daily, gradually you see the limits of the idea, and slowly the pain dissolves. You see that this idea is just an idea, and that you’d mistaken this idea as the be all and end all. So fixed on the destination, you were missing the journey. You begin again, realising all ideas are equal. Your choice of one does not make it special. There’s no need to raise it above.
Living in the world, plans are required. Ideas about things are a part of life. The key lies in how we relate to our ideas and plans. The key is planning without attaching to the outcome, remaining open to ideas and change along the way. Just like a tree in the wind, now this way, now that way. If trees were fixed and unable to bend, they would snap and die. It’s with the tree’s flexibility that it’s able to survive.
(photo)
Related posts:-
Popularity: 10%
Great post.
It marked an important turning point in my own practice, this recognition that everything that caused me suffering, was, in the end, nothing more than a mind state, and as such, it was the most ephemeral and impermanent of all things.
We regularly imagine that moods and mind states are somehow as real and tangible as concrete. Extraordinary freedom comes when we stop taking them with deadly grim seriousness.
I enjoyed this post and I’d add that one practice that has helped me in remembering my separation from my thoughts and beliefs is to simply remind myself that “I am the one having this thought.” This mantra affirms that I am distinct from my thoughts and that my identity doesn’t depend on them.
Hi Wade,
I think the distinction between ideas and more primary experience is important. (I’m avoiding the term ‘reality’ – after all if ideas weren’t real they wouldn’t be a problem; would they?)
What is missing from this account is a meangingful place for education (I don’t mean schooling). A newborn is quite different to a mature adult, and I don’t see the progress to adulthood as only unfortunate (though it does have its downsides). One difference is what the person has learned. And I don’t see this as only unfortunate either.
I think our ideas can influence our primary experience. The one who has achieved competence has a different immediate response to the novice. Training in any art involves the training of perception (immediate experience).
You have through experience come to understand that ideas are not primary experience. Is this really ‘just another idea’ equivalent to ‘the moon is made of green cheese’. I can’t see that it is. And your meditation has improved through a process of learning – in which ideas have their part, it seems to me.
So I hope this long rant makes clear my problem with education being missing from this account of consciousness. (Disclosure of personal interest: I’m a teacher – and quite attached to the value of learning for people.)
The funniest thought came through my mind after reading this post. The idea of learning to walk again. After reaching full awake-ness. When I woke up, I realized that waking up out of the idea of everything, including all the idea’s that have helped to bring me here. Does this make sense. It is like being born again.
When we really start to take a look at who we think we are, we become very grace prone. To see that while we may have various thoughts, ideas, beliefs, identities, they do not individually or collectively tell us who we are. A mystery presents itself, out of nothingness.
love & Light
Nice work Wade,
I did a webcomic on Reality a couple days ago some might enjoy.
(I got this article linked up now.)
http://mojo1000.com/1000cuts/i-flunked-reality-101.html
@Evan: As a teacher you may have a special interest in it.
It is amazing how our perception changes as we stop to notice the subtle nuances from the perspective of our own stillness. This is like choosing to freeze frame everything in our midst, and to reach down inside ourselves for a sense of how we feel where we are and what it all means.
Wade,
You really have a knack for blowing me away with your posts. This one was particularly mind blowing. I can tell it came from a deeply personal place. Yet at the same time the universality of it cannot be denied.
Thank you so much . . .
your friend,
Greg
@mercurious, Right on. It’s amazing to be able to see through things. So often we box ourselves in and create ideas about the future, holding them with such certainty. As you say, we become free when we stop taking them so seriously.
@Chris Edgar, Thanks for your comments. That’s a very interesting mantra. Pretty tricky, to unravel too. It’s the I that has the thought, but the I is just the I, it is not the real you. Crazy
@Evan, As you say, through experience I have learnt that ideas are not primary experience. It’s not “just another idea”. Experience is experience, it’s not an idea. One is lived, one is thought. I have learnt nothing through meditation, I do nothing when I meditate, there is no idea, no growth and no goal of meditation. Meditation is simply primary experience.
I like this quote from Zen Open Circle, about teachers….”A teacher cannot give you what is yours already, your own essential nature. What you are looking for is the actual nature of the one who looks. Fortunately, you cannot take hold of it and you can never lose it. Realizing and actualizing your fundamental nature is a lifelong practice. It never stops opening. Teacher and student are the same in this respect.” (FYI They are based in Newtown, Susan Murphy Roshi is fantastic http://www.zenopencircle.org.au/zenteacher.htm)
I also like that you continue to challenge me with your ideas, they make me question and explore. Thank you for not following, but questioning yourself. It’s through our differences that we become aware.
@Terry, That’s a great awakening. There’s Buddhist, from the Pali Cannon, that view the teachings as a raft crossing a river, and that once you get to the other side, you must take the raft off your back. There’s no point carrying it over land.
@MonkMojo, thanks for linking me to the comic, it made me laugh.
@Liara, agree
In the same vein that mercurious was talking about. So much freedom opens up when we stop taking it all so seriously.
@Gregor, Thankyou, I bow to the Buddha in you, Gassho.
May all beings be peaceful.
Gassho,
Wade
Wade,
Thank you for yet another insightful reading. I have just recently finished a book by H.H. The Dalai Lama about learning who you really are and this particular entry of yours kind of reminds me of what he mentions in this book.
Beyond the thoughts, emotions, and decisions that make up our daily life, when it all is broken down to its most minute form, there is essentially nothing. The microscopic molecules that we are made of, which in turn creates combinations of internal chemical and physical reactions, manifests these ideas and such within our mind. These ideas and internal conversations are most often the cause for our suffering. Until we learn to let them go and realize what it is we are in our truest sense, we will continue to potentially suffer as we deal with them in the way we think best.