What Is More Real, the Seer or the Seen
Qué Es Más Real, el Que Ve o lo Visto
A student feels trapped in a habit of doing and self-judgment. The teacher redirects from the search for a personal problem toward recognizing the one who observes, and toward a trust that rests on direct experience rather than belief.
What Is More Real, the Seer or the Seen
A student feels trapped in a habit of doing and self-judgment. The teacher redirects from the search for a personal problem toward recognizing the one who observes, and toward a trust that rests on direct experience rather than belief.
I guess it's confusing for me, navigating all of this.
Try not to make it about you. Try not to make it personal, because there's a tendency to think, "It's me who doesn't get it. I especially don't get it compared to others," or "I have this issue more than others." That isn't so. It's universal. This is a generalization, but it's clear that the great majority of people don't get this. It's the Four Noble Truths of the Buddha. It's the foundation of Buddhism.
Yeah, I guess I'm just back in the machine of doing.
You're defining the problem. See, this is how the mind works. The mind is what I was pointing to in the meditation. It's invested, focused only on finding the problem, finding the nature of this problem and fixing it. So your mind goes to, "Yes, there's this sense of something missing, something's not okay. Oh, I see what the problem is. First it was my past, it happened in my childhood. Then it was my relationships. Now it's being in the machine of doing. So if only I stopped getting into the machine of doing, then I will arrive. I will solve it."
No. You can take a vacation and sit in a room for a week, do nothing, and the dissatisfaction is still there.
It's just so deeply embedded in everything that I do. I feel like I don't know any other way.
Yes, it's true. Just try to understand that this is a human condition.
I just observe myself continuing to do this.
Pretty much. Just look at how this happens.
The observer and the observed
Even as I'm saying try not to make it personal, maybe play with a perspective: what you are is a mysterious observer that is watching this person and watching this person function.
And judging.
Judging what?
My actions.
The judgment is the mind. That which observes is not judging. That which observes notices. It notices, "Oh, the mind is judging." If you notice what I'm referring to, you might recognize that there is something that can see judgment. There is something that can see this person. There is something that can see this person's thoughts and mind.
So which one am I? Am I that which sees, or that which is seen? Can you be both? Which one is more real? If you see the hand, are you the hand? If you see the mind, are you the mind?
It can be one or the other, but not both at the same time.
You can be both, but which one is more real? What is the nature of what you are? Yes, it helps to begin by considering that only one is you. In fact, only one is real.
The observer.
The observer, yes. Though I'd rather call it something different, because that language refers to some kind of entity that one can imagine has a location. So I'd rather call it something a little more vague, like "that which sees," or "knowingness."
Resonance as confirmation
When you said the miracle of seeing, or the miracle of hearing, it just brought tears to my eyes.
That's the heart resonating with that truth. They are words, but the words point to something that is real. The heart resonates, and you resonate. Take that as a sign of a personal knowing, a personal experience that confirms what is true and real.
My words, other people's words, are only really valuable if they are known to you and they resonate in you. Then your own experience confirms them, and this avoids them becoming a belief system. Only your experience, your truth, is what matters.
Sometimes I don't trust myself. A lot of the time I don't trust myself, probably.
That, again, is very universal, but true. It's about trusting in this unknown, in this mystery, in this present reality. We call it a moment, but it's not a moment. There's nothing other than this. The distrust we have of this reality calls us into thought, into strategies and attempts at controlling: controlling our circumstances, the world, but also our minds and our emotions.
So the distrust is just another piece of the "something wrong with me" belief.
It's very much at the root.
Faith without blindness
Consider what we might call the awake traditions. Some traditions and religions are more dogma, belief, and confusion. But within Christianity, for example, there have been and are awake branches and sections. A big core part of that tradition and its language is faith.
And I don't have that. I don't have blind faith in anything.
I'm not saying blind faith. I'm bringing this up for a reason, because that tradition touches on trust. The word faith has been used and interpreted in very twisted, problematic ways. But true faith, what I'm referring to as true faith, is not blind. What's often referred to as blind faith is dogmatic faith, which is just trust in dogma, believing it to be true without knowing at all for yourself that it is. You make yourself blind and just believe it.
So you fake it.
"Fake it till you make it" is a different expression, something else. What I'm talking about is trust. You brought up trust, and I'm highlighting faith. I could say true faith is trusting something that, at a level of feeling, resonates as true, but that you cannot understand and that cannot be known by you.
How do I know what I'm feeling is true and not just the story?
You just did, and we talked about it. You said you were moved. I said something about a miracle, and you were moved. That is your truth. But if you look, you cannot understand why. You may think you understand, but it's prior to thought. Something happens that is prior to our mental structures. Something there says yes. If you put it in words: something here is a miracle, it's beautiful, I love it. And your body responds. You feel moved, good feelings arise. But you can't really understand what that is, what it's referring to. It's this mystery. It's literally mystery, miracle.
Those words point to something that cannot be grasped with thought. If science explains it, it's not a miracle. If the mind explains it, it's not a miracle. So "miracle" points to that which is beyond understanding. "Mystery" points to that which is beyond understanding.
The miracle already here
It's like the miracle is right before me, and I'm rejecting it.
Yes, and you're doing that just like most people on this earth. You're not special in that way. I'm highlighting this because your tone and your energy, when you mention that recognition, personalize it, as if you're doing something especially wrong that makes you somehow unique, as if there's a problem in you particularly. It's not true. It's the human condition. It's the nature of how human body-minds have evolved.
And the mystery of what this is, it just happens to be that the experience of being human comes with a really strong tendency and urge to feel that something's missing, that it's you who has that problem, and that you might be able to fix it. The only thing that's wrong is the belief that what you are, and all you are, is this human body-mind. Believing that's all you are brings about this sense of something missing, because something is missing. What's missing is the reality and the truth that this is not where you are, and that what you are is much vaster, mysterious, and unknowable.
That is already here. You do not become it. You do not get to it. It is already here, and it is a miracle when it is recognized. Once it is recognized, it's hard to go back. You can live out and enjoy and play and move through life as the experience of being human, but with a deep knowing that this is just a part of you.