How this plays out in a particular life is different for each individual. Some folks get it all in one big blast (Tolle, the Buddha, etc), and some folks get it piecemeal (moi).
I was lucky because I got a big glimpse of the truth followed by a second big glimpse. This added enormous motivation because it was then obvious that reality was not what it had seemed to be. I then knew that thought processes and cognitive filters were keeping me from being psychologically unified with "what is," but at that time I still thought that there was a "me" who needed to get unified (the cosmic joke).
Gradually, as I kept doing Zen breath awareness meditation, ATA, and koan contemplation, the body/mind became an action-oriented mechanism rather than a reflection-oriented mechanism. At the age of 40, when I first began meditating, I'm guessing that more than 95% of my time was spent thinking. During that first month of meditation I spent about an hour each day trying to count breath inhalations. During the next two months I spent an hour with that practice and added a second hour of ATA, just walking along country roads looking and listening (despite the internal dialogue still going full speed). During the next two months I added a third hour of breath-following awareness at night. So, by the fifth month, when I began falling into states of samadhi, I was spending about three hours each day focusing upon what is real rather than what is imaginary.
After the first big cosmic consciousness experience occurred, I was intimately connected to reality for about two days. Selfhood was gone, and I only wanted to spend time helping people. Ha ha! During that time I tried to give away our family-owned construction company (a very funny story all by itself), and had no interest in anything personal. I even lost all interest in meditation. Of course, on the third day mind re-entered the picture and my intimate union with reality began to dissipate. It was quite horrifying because it was tangibly viscerally clear that "I" was being pulled back into a state of psychological separation. I remember lying in bed at night and trying to hear sounds in the same way that I had heard sounds during the previous two days, but the sense that I was a "someone" hearing externalized sounds was returning, and there was nothing I could do about it. Selfhood came back and tried to coopt everything that had happened. It literally felt like "I" was pulled out of a living heaven-on-earth and returned to a dead world of "me in here" psychologically separated from the truth.
Ironically, during the six months following that first big CC experience, I went around telling everyone that they should meditate (thinking that that was the only way someone could gain psychological unity), but I was unable to do so myself. Ha ha. That was really funny, and I remember thinking how strange that was at the time. I was running around telling people to meditate, and I couldn't make myself do it! This proves that THIS has a great sense of humor.
At that point I learned about the Kwan Um Zen group in Kentucky and went to my first three-day silent retreat. There, I had another big breakthrough realization, got interested in koans, and began going on regular retreats. As time went by, my interest in ATA increased, even though I had no name for it at the time, and when I went on retreats, I began to combine ATA with the meditation sessions.
Zen retreats are very intense, as I described in my book, but added even more intensity. In between sitting sessions, I would spend all of the free time walking in the area of the retreat center while trying to look and listen without thinking. You know the rest of the story. I began to realize that ATA was just as important as formal meditation, and I began to realize that what mattered most was sustaining awareness of what is real. That's when I began writing notes to remind myself to re-focus on what could be seen or heard rather that thoughts.
The insight that I had while pouring concrete was the next big realization I had, because I then clearly saw how ideas separate us from THIS, and I began using the question "What must I be doing this moment" to break the habit of fantasizing about running away to a mountaintop and escaping what I perceived as my irritating work and family responsibilities. That's when I realized that the path to truth, for me, was right through the middle of pouring concrete and all of my existing relationships.
In the same way, your path is probably right through the middle of exactly what you're doing now. There are no rules, and each person's situation is completely different. The key is simply doing whatever must be done in this moment with as much attentiveness as possible, and spending as much free time as possible interacting with the world like a little child--non-reflectively.
In essence, what you're doing is turning your back on self-referential thinking and unnecessary thought, and becoming now-oriented. This, alone, is what will lead to psychological unification with THIS.
Several people have complained that I am opposed to thought, but this is not true. I simply suggest that most abstract thought is unnecessary and usually functions like a set of blinders. The ultimate goal is to become psychologically unified with THIS and then mind can function freely, more like a servant than a master.
Zen Masters make one good point that is rarely discussed on the ST website. Even after the illusion of selfhood has collapsed, there is no end to Self-discovery and what can be realized. They, and teachers like Gangaji and Tolle, advise continued vigilance. As attentiveness continues without the illusion that there is someone doing anything, the mind grows increasingly silent and the sense of aliveness and poignancy increases also. Zen Masters continue to do zazen after satori, but walking in the woods or driving a car while looking and listening throughout the day has the same effect; it leads to a deepening appreciation and sense of gratitude for THIS that we are.
IOW, even satori has to be left behind so that THIS can function most optimally. The tenth ox-herding picture of Zen shows a little old man with a big grin on his face wearing sandals and carrying a sack over his shoulder. The title of that picture is "Entering the marketplace with helping hands." The sage no longer thinks in terms of self or other. S/he is full of joy and helps wherever help is needed. The world then becomes empty and self-illuminating, and it is impossible to even describe what that is like.
Last night I was one of seven speakers at a symposium on religion and social service at a local university. There was a Christian minister, a Muslim Imam, a Jewish rabbi, a Unitarian Universalist, a Hindu priest, and me. I was invited to represent all of the non-duality spiritual traditions. All of the speakers other than the Hindu priest and me were living in their heads. They talked about duties and obligations and all kinds of abstract religious stuff, but the 87 year old Hindu priest was DEEP. He sat beside me on the stage and we whispered back and forth. He said, "I don;t know what they're talking about, do you?" It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. He hadn't experienced full realization, but it didn't matter. He was full of love and joy, and he had enormous humility and gratitude. I just wanted to hug him because he was so lovable. When it was his turn to speak, he related some wonderful stories from his childhood that illustrated the importance of an open heart, and he explained that all of his grandchildren were agnostics who had got him interested in looking at his religion and spirituality with new eyes. He had discovered how little he knew, and he was now starting to understand for the first time that all of his priestly education was pointing far beyond the conventional ideas that he had once believed. He was such a joy to be with that I hope to go visit him soon (he lives in another city). I'm not sure that we'll even need to say anything to each other. We may just want to sit and look into each others eyes. The only other person I've ever felt that way around was the Dalai Lama.
I was lucky because I got a big glimpse of the truth followed by a second big glimpse. This added enormous motivation because it was then obvious that reality was not what it had seemed to be. I then knew that thought processes and cognitive filters were keeping me from being psychologically unified with "what is," but at that time I still thought that there was a "me" who needed to get unified (the cosmic joke).
Gradually, as I kept doing Zen breath awareness meditation, ATA, and koan contemplation, the body/mind became an action-oriented mechanism rather than a reflection-oriented mechanism. At the age of 40, when I first began meditating, I'm guessing that more than 95% of my time was spent thinking. During that first month of meditation I spent about an hour each day trying to count breath inhalations. During the next two months I spent an hour with that practice and added a second hour of ATA, just walking along country roads looking and listening (despite the internal dialogue still going full speed). During the next two months I added a third hour of breath-following awareness at night. So, by the fifth month, when I began falling into states of samadhi, I was spending about three hours each day focusing upon what is real rather than what is imaginary.
After the first big cosmic consciousness experience occurred, I was intimately connected to reality for about two days. Selfhood was gone, and I only wanted to spend time helping people. Ha ha! During that time I tried to give away our family-owned construction company (a very funny story all by itself), and had no interest in anything personal. I even lost all interest in meditation. Of course, on the third day mind re-entered the picture and my intimate union with reality began to dissipate. It was quite horrifying because it was tangibly viscerally clear that "I" was being pulled back into a state of psychological separation. I remember lying in bed at night and trying to hear sounds in the same way that I had heard sounds during the previous two days, but the sense that I was a "someone" hearing externalized sounds was returning, and there was nothing I could do about it. Selfhood came back and tried to coopt everything that had happened. It literally felt like "I" was pulled out of a living heaven-on-earth and returned to a dead world of "me in here" psychologically separated from the truth.
Ironically, during the six months following that first big CC experience, I went around telling everyone that they should meditate (thinking that that was the only way someone could gain psychological unity), but I was unable to do so myself. Ha ha. That was really funny, and I remember thinking how strange that was at the time. I was running around telling people to meditate, and I couldn't make myself do it! This proves that THIS has a great sense of humor.
At that point I learned about the Kwan Um Zen group in Kentucky and went to my first three-day silent retreat. There, I had another big breakthrough realization, got interested in koans, and began going on regular retreats. As time went by, my interest in ATA increased, even though I had no name for it at the time, and when I went on retreats, I began to combine ATA with the meditation sessions.
Zen retreats are very intense, as I described in my book, but added even more intensity. In between sitting sessions, I would spend all of the free time walking in the area of the retreat center while trying to look and listen without thinking. You know the rest of the story. I began to realize that ATA was just as important as formal meditation, and I began to realize that what mattered most was sustaining awareness of what is real. That's when I began writing notes to remind myself to re-focus on what could be seen or heard rather that thoughts.
The insight that I had while pouring concrete was the next big realization I had, because I then clearly saw how ideas separate us from THIS, and I began using the question "What must I be doing this moment" to break the habit of fantasizing about running away to a mountaintop and escaping what I perceived as my irritating work and family responsibilities. That's when I realized that the path to truth, for me, was right through the middle of pouring concrete and all of my existing relationships.
In the same way, your path is probably right through the middle of exactly what you're doing now. There are no rules, and each person's situation is completely different. The key is simply doing whatever must be done in this moment with as much attentiveness as possible, and spending as much free time as possible interacting with the world like a little child--non-reflectively.
In essence, what you're doing is turning your back on self-referential thinking and unnecessary thought, and becoming now-oriented. This, alone, is what will lead to psychological unification with THIS.
Several people have complained that I am opposed to thought, but this is not true. I simply suggest that most abstract thought is unnecessary and usually functions like a set of blinders. The ultimate goal is to become psychologically unified with THIS and then mind can function freely, more like a servant than a master.
Zen Masters make one good point that is rarely discussed on the ST website. Even after the illusion of selfhood has collapsed, there is no end to Self-discovery and what can be realized. They, and teachers like Gangaji and Tolle, advise continued vigilance. As attentiveness continues without the illusion that there is someone doing anything, the mind grows increasingly silent and the sense of aliveness and poignancy increases also. Zen Masters continue to do zazen after satori, but walking in the woods or driving a car while looking and listening throughout the day has the same effect; it leads to a deepening appreciation and sense of gratitude for THIS that we are.
IOW, even satori has to be left behind so that THIS can function most optimally. The tenth ox-herding picture of Zen shows a little old man with a big grin on his face wearing sandals and carrying a sack over his shoulder. The title of that picture is "Entering the marketplace with helping hands." The sage no longer thinks in terms of self or other. S/he is full of joy and helps wherever help is needed. The world then becomes empty and self-illuminating, and it is impossible to even describe what that is like.
Last night I was one of seven speakers at a symposium on religion and social service at a local university. There was a Christian minister, a Muslim Imam, a Jewish rabbi, a Unitarian Universalist, a Hindu priest, and me. I was invited to represent all of the non-duality spiritual traditions. All of the speakers other than the Hindu priest and me were living in their heads. They talked about duties and obligations and all kinds of abstract religious stuff, but the 87 year old Hindu priest was DEEP. He sat beside me on the stage and we whispered back and forth. He said, "I don;t know what they're talking about, do you?" It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. He hadn't experienced full realization, but it didn't matter. He was full of love and joy, and he had enormous humility and gratitude. I just wanted to hug him because he was so lovable. When it was his turn to speak, he related some wonderful stories from his childhood that illustrated the importance of an open heart, and he explained that all of his grandchildren were agnostics who had got him interested in looking at his religion and spirituality with new eyes. He had discovered how little he knew, and he was now starting to understand for the first time that all of his priestly education was pointing far beyond the conventional ideas that he had once believed. He was such a joy to be with that I hope to go visit him soon (he lives in another city). I'm not sure that we'll even need to say anything to each other. We may just want to sit and look into each others eyes. The only other person I've ever felt that way around was the Dalai Lama.
