Figure and Ground

The other evening, while contemplating the question "What Am I?" (in the dyad format employed in Enlightenment Intensive retreats), it became clear that there has been a recent shift in my way of experiencing, a shift which continues to unfold.  It is a kind of reversal of figure and ground, a shift in the gestalt of how life is experienced.  There is a seeing that any experience of knowing or conceptualizing is just arising out of "emptiness", or the Unknown, and that it is an expression of the Emptiness or Formless.  The Mystery is the source and substance of all that arises as mind, thought, and knowing of anything - all that is conceived in consciousness.  Thoughts, perceptions, knowings, all arise out of nothing and dissolve back into nothing, arising and subsiding like waves in a flowing river.  The "nothing" or "emptiness" is not nothing or empty, however, except that it is empty of mind or knowing in the conceptual sense.

   One of the thoughts or concepts that arises is the "I" thought, the sense of a "me", a person, an individual entity.  When this concept is give power and reality then there is instantly the fear of its dissolving, the fear of death.  The thought form or idea that has arisen is given weight over and against the emptiness which then threatens to swallow it up each moment.  Resistance to this dissolving of thought forms, especially the "I" thought, seems to prevent the full movement of creation and dissolution that is the natural flow of Life.

   The shift that has taken place as the self-inquiry has progressed is the realization that there is now more power, weight, or reality being given to the Emptiness out of which knowing arises than to the conceptual forms that are appearing in it and from it.  The realization that the forms are the Emptiness, are the same substance as the Emptiness, their source, shifts the gestalt or focus of perception from the forms being the primary reality to the Emptiness being the reality.  Or, more accurately, they are both the same single reality and therefore there is no threat of death or dissolution:  there is only the Source returning to itself, which it always was, and never was not.  It moves only between the formless aspect of itself and the apparent forms of itself.  This shift in the gestalt intuitively feels like it makes a huge difference in how life is experienced!

   Attempting to express this understanding in words feels cumbersome and awkward and can appear overly intellectual or mental.  When directly experienced, these kinds of insights are clear and simple, but they can seemingly never be adequately communicated to someone who is not seeing it directly for themselves.  The description is not the described;  the word is not the thing.  And it seems there is no way to bring about these insights by any form of calculation or manipulation.  There is only the authentic unquiry into our nature, the nature of mind and perception, and the spontaneous discoveries that arise within that exploration, within the ever deepening looking into oneself.