The Knowing Before Names
El conocer antes de los nombres
Notice how sounds, sensations, and thoughts all arise in one open space, and rest in the quiet knowing that holds them without fixing anything.
The Knowing Before Names
Notice the subtle distinction between what we normally experience as the inner world,
what is inside, versus outside.
So what we call the inner world is sensation,
and then all of the experience of thoughts,
where there is the sense of me here.
The image is a narrative of past and future.
And now the very subtle, clear perimeter of the body,
of all experience,
of everything that's happening.
Sensation is internal,
perception is external,
thoughts are internal,
and the sense of me is sensation and thoughts.
All sounds, the experience of sight, are happening in the same space as sensations and thoughts.
There is no separation or boundary line between them.
Sounds and sensations
Notice sounds and sensations.
Sounds, not me.
Sensations, me.
Why is that so?
Is there another, different perspective already happening here,
where sensation and sounds are clearly in the same dimension?
As if it was more like an empty vessel or an empty space,
where no effort is needed.
It's just a shift in, let's say, the center of gravity,
the center of perception,
experience,
a centerless center.
It might seem so vast and strange that it might seem foreign.
From where and to which sensations, thoughts, sounds appear.
When contraction appears
Whenever a sense of contraction or discomfort, unwantedness, is happening,
rather than the attempt to fix and change,
just notice this vaster, centerless space
where sounds, sensations, thoughts, discomforts, unwantedness
all appear in the same dimension,
the same field.
With a certain kind of caring indifference,
a caring non-preference,
just allowing.
Just like a riverbed,
allowing whatever comes through in the river.
Allowing, caring,
marveling, delighting.
A gentle undermining of the tendencies to attempt to control,
to contract.
Over and over again, and again,
as the contraction appears,
or the fascination with thought,
involvement with discomfort,
dissatisfaction.
Over and over, as it appears,
rather than attempting to fix or change,
just drop into the allowing background,
the empty, centerless field.
What comes and goes
The sentience is the unborn, where everything emerges.
Everything that emerges comes and goes,
is born and dies,
begins and ends.
Sounds come and go,
thoughts come and go,
sensations come and go,
colors, shapes, forms.
Emotions, feelings, reactions, discomforts,
all coming and going.
The reality from which all is born is right here,
formless,
spaceless,
timeless.
The knowing
If there is something happening,
if there is experience,
there is the knowing aspect,
the knowingness,
the beingness.
And so wherever, whenever there is dissatisfaction,
struggle,
discomfort,
suffering,
pain,
fear,
there always is the knowingness of it.
And to this knowingness all comes and goes, unaffected.
Keep looking for, in this moment,
pure, effortless knowing.
Not a knowing of thought,
not a knowing of how things work;
a knowing that is closer to seeing.
Looking without eyes,
looking without a mind,
seeing where eyes, mind, sounds, colors, shapes appear.
The seeing of which the seeing is made.
If there is discomfort,
just notice the knowing of discomfort.
Leave the discomfort alone and let it flow like a river.
If there are thoughts,
notice the knowing of thoughts.
Absolute, simple, total recognition,
just this empty seeing,
empty knowing,
where all is silent,
where sounds are not sound, they are just textures.
Before names
Where nothing in experience has names or qualities,
just pure experience
before sensations and thoughts and sounds are named.
They are just appearing textures.
Only in the naming do sensations and sounds appear to be two.
Before the names, they are in the same space.
Pain and discomfort in the body and the bird song:
before they are named, they are not different.
Just textures and appearance.
Right here, right now,
what knows,
without names,
before names,
before preferences,
it is right here.
The deepest sense of what we call I
knows before preferences,
knows before effort.
If effort is known,
if preferences are known,
what is here before, silent?
The groundless ground
The more we recognize this silent knowingness,
this open, centerless reality,
the more it becomes our groundless ground,
to which and from where all appears,
happens,
and moves,
in peace and joy,
and in a quiet caring.