Mind / Matter

Is it that there are various ways of seeing one object, or is it that we have mistaken various images for one object?

--Dogen

There is no contradiction between body and spirit, between mind and matter. These are just words we use to understand one thing.

--Zoketsu Norman Fischer

All you need to do is to get rid of the tendency to define your self.

--Nisargadatta Maharaj

As we explore the actuality of the body and discover directly that it is insubstantial, impermanent, and boundless, we find that many knotty problems dissolve into thin air along with the body. For example, there is much debate over which is primary, mind or matter, and whether Consciousness is limited to the body or whether it is beyond the body. Will it survive the body or die along with the brain?  Didn’t the universe begin with matter, and then consciousness appeared much later in the evolutionary process, as a feature of complex organic life?  Consciousness occurs in brains, but not in stones, right?

We cannot deny that all our knowledge and experience, everything perceivable and conceivable, appears in Consciousness, and is in some sense “made up” of Consciousness. We have no actual experience of anything outside of Consciousness or other than Consciousness. The very notion that there is a “material” world outside of Consciousness can only appear in Consciousness, and can never be verified. Don’t take any of this on faith, but look and see for yourself. What is always here in every experience? What must be here first in order for anything else to appear at all?

As we explore actual present moment experiencing, and as we look closely into the nature of this dream-like reality that appears in consciousness, we find ceaseless change and complete interdependence. We find that everything is involved with everything else, and we discover that solid, independent objects only exist conceptually as ideas (and to some degree as conditioned perceptions).  When examined closely and carefully, we see that the boundaries between objects are fluid, porous and notional, and that any given object only exists (and can only exist) along with, and because of, everything it is not---that it is actually made up of everything it is not---that everything is inside everything else. This is sometimes called Oneness, but once it is named and conceptualized, it becomes another (imaginary) object, so Buddhists prefer to call it emptiness. As one Buddhist teacher put it, everything is empty of itself and full of everything else. Emptiness is not some mysterious vacancy or voidness, but rather, exactly this – this present moment. 

There can only be an outside and an inside if you have an object (a separate, independent, solid, continuous thing – like a “brain” or a “stone” or a “self”) to be inside or outside of.  And yet in seeing clearly, it is obvious that no such separate, discrete, persisting objects exist in reality.  At a casual glance, yes, we do seem to see a world of apparently solid, separate, persisting objects, and this appearance isn’t going to disappear. This appearance arises through some mix of conditioned perception and conceptualizing, and it has a relative reality and a functional utility within the dream-like movie of waking life that appears in consciousness. But when we look more closely and carefully, either through meditation or science, we find the borders are not solid, the objects are nothing but continuous change, and the "me" who is assumed to be seeing all this cannot be found.  There is only undivided, seamless, thorough-going flux, constant change, change that is so thorough-going and so complete that there is actually no separate or persisting “thing” to be impermanent! There is always only this one timeless present moment that never comes and never goes and never stays the same.

If we see that there is only thorough-going flux, or One Immutable Reality, then we see that the brain is actually inseparable from the stone – they are different expressions of one seamless, ever-changing, ever-present Whole. To say that Consciousness resides in the brain and not in the stone is to imagine that “brains,” “stones,” and “consciousness” are separate, discrete, independent, persisting “things.”  Clearly, within the dream that we take for reality, brains do play a significant and unique role in manifesting, revealing or transmitting consciousness, but the brain could not (and does not) exist without everything else in the universe including the stone.  The stone and the brain are like two ends of the same caterpillar. Nothing is outside of this undivided flowing Wholeness.

We can say that I am inside or outside this room – and relatively speaking, this makes sense, and is a useful way of conceptualizing and speaking. It allows us to function. But in reality, there is no real separation between inside the room and outside the room, and there is no me apart from the room to be in or out of it. The boundary lines are purely notional, as is the room itself, as am I.  All apparently discrete entities are simply conceptual ideas, reifications created by perception and conception abstracting out and freezing some tiny piece of the ever-shifting infinite Whole as if it were a separate thing and then drawing an imaginary boundary-line around it and giving it a name.

Likewise, in reality, there is no “my mind” and “your mind,” no “me” and “you,” no “here” and “there.”  Such separations are always only conceptual and relative. They have a functional usefulness and a relative reality, but if we give them an absolute reality they don’t actually have, we suffer.

So how can Consciousness be located only in the brain and not also, in some sense, in the stone?  Look at a brain or a stone at the quantum level, and you find mostly empty space with subatomic wavicles dancing in and out of existence. You don’t find solid boundaries anywhere.  And all of this---brains, stones, wavicles, subatomic happenings, ideas---all of this appears in Consciousness and is Consciousness in that sense.

Even if I were a brain in a vat, as some of us have imagined we might be, where exactly would this brain and this vat be located? We could say, on Planet X, but then where is Planet X located?  We could say, in some corner of the universe, but then where is the universe located? Where did the Big Bang happen? We seem always to come back to the primacy of Consciousness and the impossibility of ever getting outside of it. All our "objects" (from brains to subatomic particles to planets to vats) are seen to be thought-forms (and to some degree, conditioned perceptions) appearing in Consciousness. The fundamental reality would seem to be Mind and not matter, but then, what exactly is matter?  We have an idea that it is something very solid and substantial, like chairs and tables, but when we look closely at any material, it turns out not to be in any way solid or substantial. “Matter” seems to evaporate into thin air when we really investigate it!

Clearly, we don’t “know” what Consciousness (or Mind, or Awareness) is either, and we never will know, because the eye can’t see itself.  There is no way to stand outside of Consciousness and observe it as an object.  And in fact, scientists are finding there is really no way to stand outside of anything and observe it as an object, perhaps because everything is Consciousness!  In the deepest sense, we don’t really know what anything is!  We can say that water is made up of such and such elements and that it is a liquid, but does that really tell us what water is? 

Although we don’t know what Consciousness “is,” we certainly can’t deny the reality of Consciousness – it is always right here as the most intimate ground of every moment. It is the undeniable fact of being present, being aware.  We have absolutely no doubt about being here, and this doubtless certainty requires no training and no proof. Consciousness would have to be here first in order to doubt it! 

Although Consciousness is the one thing of which we have absolutely no doubt whatsoever—it is our most intimate and ever-present reality, the very ground of every moment—even so, we can’t ever apprehend or grasp this Conscious Presence or say exactly what it is!  It has no taste, no color, no shape, no form – other than every taste and every color and every shape and every form. As someone said, it’s so clear, it’s easy to overlook.  And even this clarity is part of the appearance, for every night in deep sleep, even the first sense of awareness vanishes completely along with everything perceivable and conceivable. The groundlessness that remains can never be perceived or conceptualized because it is the perceiving and conceptualizing, it is the awaring, it is being and beholding everything.

We may think that Consciousness is a brain creation, but no brain has ever appeared outside of Consciousness, and if we cut open the brain, we won’t find this room I’m sitting in. So where exactly is this room, and am I in it, or is it in me?  Indeed, every location, every happening, and everything I ever encounter, appears within me, within Consciousness. Does it also exist “out there” apart from me?  Are we really a bunch of separate, independent organisms all “looking out” through the windows of our senses at a single objective reality that always exists “out there” whether or not anyone is aware of it, each of us seeing this single reality in slightly different ways?  Or is that very idea of an objective reality “out there” a fundamental misconception?  As Zen Master Dogen asked, Are there various ways of seeing one object, or have we mistaken various images for a single object? 

We intuitively sense that there is a Single Reality of some kind, but is it “out there” as an object to be seen, or is it rather the all-inclusive being and beholding of everything?  And is anything really separate from this Single Reality, this ever-present, ever-changing groundlessness?

The thinking mind easily and habitually gets all tangled up trying to solve imaginary problems. It may now be tangled up in trying to figure out whether “the Single Reality” and “groundlessness” and “Consciousness” and “awareness” and “being” are all the same thing or a bunch of different things, and which thing is prior to which other thing, but of course, these words all point beyond the very notion of “things.”  So the invitation here is to drop all these words and ideas for a moment and simply be. This is easy because you can’t possibly not be.  Notice the actual reality of this moment right now. Something is undeniably present. Hearing, seeing, sensing, being -- something is. This IS-ness is always right Here, right Now, whatever different form the present moment takes. This aliveness that makes “the present moment” present, what is that?  Never mind the word, whether we call it “Consciousness” or “Awareness” or “Presence” or “Being.” The actuality of it is undeniable and unavoidable. Being here in undeniable!

Without the words, what is this, right here, right now?  No word can capture it. And what is it that knows this beingness? What is it that remains in deep sleep when the first sense of awareness has vanished completely? What was here before the universe was born, before the Big Bang? What were you before birth, before conception? Explore these questions not by thinking about them and trying to find some answer, but by falling into the answer-less-ness. This groundlessness that can never be grasped is the Single Reality, the emptiness that appears as the first mirror of awareness in which the entire universe and “you” as the imagined character in the story of your life appear and disappear. This Single Reality has no problem with any appearance. It has no problem with being the character or the universe or with dreaming the dream. It has no need to wake up from the dream, and yet, waking up happens, and it happens only within the dream, within the world of consciousness, as another reflection in the mirror of awareness. What can be seen in the mirror is always only a reflection. The Seer Itself can never be seen. This Single Reality can never be seen, and yet whatever is seen is nothing other than this. This is all there is, and all there is, is this. What is it? Any answer you come up with must be discarded.

When the thinking mind gets busy trying to solve the mystery of the universe, we wonder if the fundamental reality is mind or matter.  We wonder which comes first, the brain or the mind, the chicken or the egg. We wonder if we are a brain in a vat, or whether or not Consciousness will survive death. We wonder what is prior to consciousness. Perhaps questions such as these are all akin to asking what happens to me if I fall off the edge of the earth.  People used to worry about that. But obviously, the apparent problem, which at the time seemed quite serious, was based on false ideas about the earth.  The danger of falling off the edge was never really there. In reality, no separate thing is ever born and nothing real ever dies.  There is no before and after, no “out there” or “in here,” except relatively, in the world of appearances.

Where is the boundary between mind and matter, or between chicken and egg, or between form and emptiness? There is no actual separation anywhere to be found. Realizing this doesn’t mean we lose the ability to distinguish a brain from a stone, or a chicken from an egg, nor does it mean that we have no boundaries in the way psychology uses that term -- awakening does not deny relative reality or the ability to set limits and make distinctions, but awakened understanding functions within that relative reality without the stickiness and confusion that comes when relative reality is mistaken for absolute reality.

Gradually, we become more and more sensitive to this conceptualizing process – the way the mind divides, abstracts, reifies and then gets confused, trying to reconcile the pieces it has just created. We can begin to see this happening as it happens. And we can begin to see directly that our confusion is all in how we’re thinking and not in reality itself.  We can come back to the simplicity of what actually is.

At the very heart of the present moment, in absolute groundlessness, we discover the extraordinary miracle that we imagined was “out there” somewhere. And we discover this not once and for all, but right Now.  There is no “final awakening.” Awakening is an infinite unfolding, an infinite Self-realization, an infinite discovery, an infinite Now. It is never finished. There is no end to it and no beginning. It is ever-present and ever-changing. 

Believing this as an idea is not enough. Belief is always shadowed by doubt. And even though we may know this secret of life from our own direct experience, our tendency is to forget and to once again go looking “out there” for something to save us, or even to go looking out there for “Here and Now.”  This habit of overlooking the jewel and searching for it somewhere else is deeply conditioned and tends to recur.  Seeking what has never been absent. It is a wonderful game, a wonderful joke, a wonderful play. The Single Reality loses itself and finds itself again and again.

In waking up, we realize that there is no enlightenment without delusion, and that we cannot actually say which comes first, delusion or enlightenment. They both appear together, like form and emptiness, or mind and matter, or chickens and eggs. Enlightenment is a word for recognizing the Single Reality that is never absent. Delusion is a word for entrancement in the story of separation and lack. Enlightenment has no problem with delusion, and recognizes delusion as an aspect of itself. In waking up from the story, consciousness realizes, again and again, that it has never really been lost or separate, that emptiness has never actually been absent. Wherever you go, Here is always Here. There is no way out of Here and Now.

In direct experience right now, what is this present moment?  Can we see that no word or concept could possibly capture it? 

Consciousness continues to explore Itself, and this is the nature of Consciousness, to explore and inquire and question. In the dream-like movie of waking life, the Single Reality appears as a multitude of individuals, and “we” do this exploration through meditation and science and body awareness work and art and lovemaking and politics and philosophy and psychotherapy and in all kinds of ways. Consciousness explores and plays with itself -- this infinite presence. And then, the Single Reality comes home from its explorations, and “we” put aside all our words, our telescopes and microscopes, our computers and paint brushes and cameras and drop into Silence. Deep sleep refreshes us, but before long, the dream world appears and then the movie of waking life, which is another kind of dream, and at the end of every episode of that dream-like movie, “we” let everything go and fall back into the refreshment of deep sleep, just like the whole universe, endlessly expanding and contracting, dying and being born, inhaling and exhaling.

And perhaps at the very heart of the present moment, there may be the discovery of the emptiness and freedom of deep sleep while fully awake, right in the midst of everyday life, the still point at the center, the Ultimate Subject, that which is unavoidable and never absent, beholding and being it all.

Where are the boundaries, the dividing lines, the place where “I” begin and end? Don’t look for the answer in thought, but simply be what you are, the answer-less-ness that needs no answer. You may find there is no end and no beginning to this indescribable being and no need to define it.

-- copyright Joan Tollifson 2009 --

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