The Single Original Reality
Ease and Spaciousness
Are Instant and Inescapable
By Relaxing in Being
Excluding Nothing and Embracing All
The Single Original Reality
I wrote this verse inspired by the Tibetan tradition of nyamgyur — Songs of Spiritual Experiences, also known as Mystical Poetry. In essence, these are concise summaries of a liberating experience and insight in verse form. They are attempts to articulate that which cannot be expressed, and to bring it into our experience. Tricky is that its conciseness requires reasonable prior knowledge and preferably also experience to lead to a direct insight and experience for the reader.
One way to overcome this traditionally is to explain the essential text in a commentary. In this way the often cryptic text becomes more accessible and instructive for readers in different stages of spiritual development. Here I commented on my own verse. My articulation is getting better through the years, but also in the spiritual realm the saying applies — easier said than done — if we don’t pay attention.
For now, take your time to read the text and reflect on the meaning for you, because it is one of the more subtle insights and applications of Attention. Rather than literally understanding what it says, think of the famous metaphor of “the finger pointing at the moon.” Do not lose yourself in the finger (the literal text), but open your mind to what it refers to (take it figuratively). Good luck!
Ease and Spaciousness
These two words immediately appeal to me, not to say evoke desire. Funny, because being in Ease and Spaciousness certainly also means the absence of desire. Desire (hope), and its counterpart, aversion (fear), however subtle, are emotional responses to what we perceive. We know that in our daily lives as reactivity, an emotionally driven response to a circumstance that comes from the three fundamental emotional responses — desire, aversion, and indifference.
As long as we are still under the influence of these conditioned reactions, we do not experience Ease and Spaciousness, but rather Unrest and Restriction. Ease and Spaciousness is the state of being in which we exist now, that we are now, if we make no attempt at all to make it different from what it is. And it ‘now’ includes all of our behavior — thoughts, emotions, feelings, images, fantasies and sensory perception of our outer circumstances in the present moment, our here-and-now.
Ease — there is nothing to do, truly, and Spaciousness — are there the moment you don’t limit them with your reactivity. Pay attention to how often you are “doing” when it is actually not necessary at all. It’s a habit that I know all too well!
Are Instant and Inescapable
Immediately here does not mean that I don’t have to do anything that takes time, but that it is immediately so, without wanting or having to change anything to what is. Difficult, because I am aware that I am still reactive and indeed, however subtle, always want to change something about how it is. Mind you, it does not mean that I am not doing anything anymore and I am only hanging on the couch doing nothing. No, it means that in my inevitable actions in the world (just like you — getting up, working, grocery shopping, cooking, washing, cleaning, raising, etc.)
I am free of reactivity that comes from my desire, aversion and indifference .If I am free from reactivity, then Peace and Space are immediate and Inescapable, because they are spontaneous in the absence of reactivity, of conditioned or neurotic “doing.” I act without doing anything (without doing anything at all to change what it is like). Try it! Observe your ‘doing’ and see what happens if you leave that, if you relax in what it is like.
By Relaxing in Being
Ah, so something to do, so relax! Ha ha, yes a nice paradox. In my experience and insight, Relaxing in Being is the essence of the spiritual path, and the most difficult thing to do. It seems too simple to be true, doesn’t it? Relax, how hard is that?If you pay attention to Being then you will see that over time your understanding and experience of what Relaxation and Being are has changed and becomes more and more comprehensive.
Mindfulness and Meditation are techniques to train your mind to be attentive in the here and now. They are relatively simple techniques that are usually underestimated in their effectiveness over time. But also overestimated, since in the later phases of the Spiritual Path the transformation goes from doing (applying technology) to not-doing (being in what is there). For the layman or traveler in the earlier phases of the Path, this distinction is often academic, an insight that may be intellectually endorsed, but has no experience yet. The paradox is that it is usually too simple for us to see. Being is too obvious.
Experiment
Bring your attention to your Being, and Relax in whatever presents itself, regardless of whether it is a thought, emotion, feeling, body sensation or whatever. As soon as you notice that you are ‘doing’ anything (thinking, concentrating, meditating, being mindful, or trying whatever), you relax again, every moment, for as long as nescessary — and that may take years — until your ‘doing’ of Relaxing into Being (technique), has become Resting in Being (state of being).
Excluding Nothing and Embracing All
Resting in Being can only occur if we exclude nothing from what we perceive and experience, and include everything. Excluding is reactivity — this (whatever experience there is now) must not be there, may not be there in this way — and then there is the immediate impulse, which is often below our awareness threshold (we do not notice it) to want to change it, however subtle. All-embracing means exactly what it says, we embrace everything — from pain to happiness, from distance to closeness, from merging into loneliness, from life to death, abundance and limitation, prosperity and adversity.
Everything that occurs, and it occurs to all of us — although not always in the same form, at the same time and in the same amount. Yes, I know that it is not easy (understatement) to exclude nothing and to include everything, and I have never experienced myself freer, more open and compassionate than in these moments. They present themselves during practice of meditation, but also increasingly spontaneously and unexpectedly, just like that during daily routine activities.
The great thing about Resting in Being is that nothing is inherently excluded, and everything is included, because they are the characteristics of Resting in Being. Rest in Being = Exclude Nothing and Include Everything.
The Single Original Reality
For a long time I’ve been quite allergic for absolute statements and truths, and unfortunately, the Spiritual Path does have quite a bit of these kinds of statements. With difficulty I learned to dismantel my initial reactivity and not to take the ‘truths’ literally but figuratively. If I can see words, statements and truths as relative, then I escape the dance of radicalization, which inevitably follows from taking things literal.
This limitation that is inherent in taking things literal leads us astray from the ever-present Ease and Spaciousness that we started with. The Single Original Reality does not mean that there is One (1) single reality that is the same for everyone, but that there is An Original Reality for everyone of us when we Relax in Being. A Reality in Ease and Spaciousness, Instantly and Inescapable, Excluding Nothing and Embracing All.
