All this has been preparation. Each metaphor, each practice, each reflection was like climbing the winding path up a mountain. Today we go to the top and look at the one thing that has never moved: the permanence within all flux.
This is not a philosophy to memorize. You will see it with your own eyes, this instant, provided you go through every step with your entire attention.
Locate a place where your body is not straining but relaxed. Relax the muscles, and let your breath find its natural rhythm. We will begin with the most obvious and gradually descend to the deepest and most delicate of the experiences we believe are our own inner being.
Close your eyes. Bring your attention to your breathing. Notice how instantly you have knowledge of it: you don't have to guess whether you're breathing in or out; you simply know.
The breath is an object of your mind. You are the one who knows.
Follow the breathing like a swell upon the beach: the in-breath flows, up and down; the out-breath is an arc. Ask yourself:
Now play with it: slow the breath. Make it deep. Make it short. Pause. With each change, notice: did you become slower, deeper, shorter? Or were you just the same, the one that was merely watching?
Allow the breath to sink into the background. Begin listening. The sound of voices, the sound of feet, the murmur of the room, all of them appearing in the room of your consciousness.
See how each sound has a distinct start, momentarily lives, then fades away into silence. Ask yourself:
Notice: sounds change without end, but the one that knows them does not.
Now we come closer to home, to the experiences we tend to identify as us. We will create them, so that you may see them:
All of them have the same scheme: beginning, duration, end. And the question is: do you become tension when tension is present? Do you become pressure when there is pressure? Or do you simply see them coming and going?
The truth is the same with breath, sounds and sensations: they come, vary, are gone, and you stay.
So now we ask: if I am not the changing breath... if I am not the passing sounds... if I am not the changing feelings... what am I? Don't think it. Don't imagine it. Look, here, now, at what is conscious.
Return to a comfortable position. Allow the breath to normalize. The mind is filled with thoughts like whispers of the air; we hardly ever ask what they are, we just live them. We shall see them differently today.
We will create some test thoughts together, with the voice in your head:
Each thought possesses the same structure: a start, like the first note of a song; a moment when it lingers; and a final dying away. Check closely: do you disappear with the thought? Do you come into being when the thought comes? Or is there, the same as ever, you?
Play again: “beautiful day” to “terrible day.” “I want to live” to “I want to die.” Ask yourself: when you thought “beautiful day,” did you become beautiful? When you thought “terrible day,” did you become terrible? The mind alters madly, but not what you are, the one who is aware.
Try anything: “I'm good.” “I'm bad.” “I can no longer do this.” “I'm loved.” “I'm unloved.” Be aware of how they come and go, change and disappear, and how you stand unchanged.
Ask, quietly but point-blank: Who am I? Am I these changing, flickering thoughts? Or am I the everlasting knowing that is aware of them? Wait a little with that question, not to give an answer in words, but to have the truth in experience.
Here is the life-altering awareness: we are not what we think. Thoughts are transient, positive or negative. They cannot damage the consciousness that perceives them. They do not make you, and they do not remake you. They are clouds; you are the sky. They pass, and you stay: immense, clear, unmarked.
Allow the breath to drop into its own swing. We turn now to something still more personal: the fine play of swelling and shrinking in your system. These feelings appear so intimate, so much like who we are, that we hardly ever consider challenging them.
First, we will create expansion. Think of somebody you love very much. Think of an occasion when you got something that you wanted. Imagine something or someone that makes you feel totally safe. Now watch what happens in your body:
There is an impression of space, of lightness. Stay with it, a few breaths.
Now we shall enter contraction. Visualize the loss of something you appreciate. Imagine being betrayed by a friend. Recall a time of profound incompetence or rejection. Watch the reaction of your system:
All is smaller, heavier, closed.
Gently move back and forth: from the happiness of being with loved ones... to the hurt of betrayal. From love... to fear. Allow yourself to experience the contrast.
Now the key investigation. Watch closely: each state has a beginning, it abides awhile, it dissolves. Ask yourself: when expansion starts, do you start? Do you end when contraction ends? Or do you remain, here, through them all? When expanded, do you become expansion? When contracted, do you become contraction? Or are you the witness who remains steadfast while they fly?
The final test: cease to create any emotion. Allow the system to rest. Is anything still aware? Even of the lack of any feeling, are you aware?
The discovery: feelings rise and fall. Contraction and expansion are like tides. But you, the consciousness, are ever the same, even when the waves are still. Are you these tides that change, or the ocean in which they change?
We come yet nearer, into emotions. They are expansions and contractions bound in titles and stories: contracting emotions, fear, anger, sadness, anxiety, depression; expanding emotions, love, joy, excitement, satisfaction. Even more than feelings, we identify with these: I am angry, I am happy, I am anxious, as though they were our descriptions. But are they? Or are they just visitors in the space of awareness?
Remember something that makes you feel happy: a victory, the laugh of a loved one, a place that feels like home. Let that joy fill you: your face softens, your chest is lighter, a warmth begins. Now... notice something. You are aware of this joy. You do not lose yourself in it; you can see it, like sunlight pouring into a room.
Shift gently. Remember a loss: a pet, a friend, a relationship. Experience the ache in the chest, the shortness of breath, the pulling. And here, too, you may see it. The sadness is a wave rising in the sea, and you are the sea, watching the wave.
Now look to excitement. Think about reuniting with a close person you have not seen in a long time; imagine you are on the border of an adventure you have long been desiring. Experience the accelerated heartbeat, the vibrancy in your fingers and toes, the near-electric buzz. And yet again, notice how you see it. You are here, watching... and excitement blooms.
Finally, fear or anxiety. Remember something that causes discomfort: a medical concern, an economic risk, a time of threat. Feel the tightening, the shallow breathing, the increased alertness. And here too there is a part of you which is not touched, which knows only that there is fear.
Alternate between these feelings: joy, sadness, excitement, fear. Watch the pattern: each one arrives, each is left to linger, each one fades. Ask yourself: do you start when they start? Do you end when they end? Do you become them, or do you stay as they leave?
Let all feeling be still. Feel the stillness. Notice: you are yet here.
The storm clouds are not yourself. You are the sky that holds them. Emotions are movements: expansions when things are labeled good, contractions when things are labeled bad. We give them a thousand names, yet they are waves after all. And you? You are the sea, which never arrives and never departs.
We have learned to talk as though we were feelings: “I am angry.” “I am anxious.” “I am sad.” But look closely: anger appears... you see it. Fear increases... you see it. Sorrow goes by... you see it. They occur in you; they are not you.
Suppose we had heard this in childhood: “I can see fear,” rather than “I am afraid.” “There is sadness,” rather than “I am sad.” “Anger is here,” rather than “I am angry.” What changes? The grip loosens. Life continues on, and you no longer confuse the weather with the sky.
When you are ready, take a deep breath, and gently open your eyes.
This practice is one of seventeen in the book.
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