just being aware

It is what it is. These five words bring us back to the reality of now. Yet, there are so many thoughts we add, judgments, analysis, hope, fear, pride, plans, it's ceaseless really. There is no end to the thinking minds story.

All of this thought coalesces, and gives birth to the ego, the story of me. With each thought the story grows, becoming more real and compelling. My accomplishment becomes a badge of honor, my failure a source of shame. There are so many entries in the file that describe me. I graduated college with a 3.6 GPA, Magna Cum Laude so I'm smart. That makes me proud. Other characteristics, I am a good writer, a good listener, a good father, give me honor too. I'm not such a good husband, at least according to my first, second wives, but maybe the person I'm in a relationship with now will say that's not true. But, if things don't go well, in a few years they may agree with the first two.

There is so much in my file. It gets thicker every day, as I note and anticipate events, real and imagined. The file takes on a world of it's own. Even my day dreams and fantasies are noted. Eventually the file is so thick that it weighs me down.

My experience of now is filtered by the information in the file. I see a trailer for a movie and I am attracted by the few words I hear, immediately I am convinced I must see it, that I will like this story. Last month my church put on a Cabaret. Five years earlier I had watched a few minutes of the movie Cabaret and didn't like it. I became convinced that I didn't want to attend the event. How funny. My best friend wanted to go, so I grudgingly agreed to buy a ticket. I loved it, yet I almost didn't go because of an entry in my ego's file.

Don't we all have lists of things we don't like, things we don't do. I didn't like Disney movies, yet I find I actually enjoy some of them. I don't like jazz, or country music, but then from time to time I hear a song on the radio from these genres and fall in love with them. I download a copy and play it all the time.

About ten years ago I went to talks by a Lama who used to say "maybe we should ask who angry" when talking about negative emotions. As a psychology major this always rubbed me the wrong way. I knew who was angry, it was me, I needed to know why I was angry. Now, I'm beginning to get what he was saying. when I was angry I was caught up in the story, I was reading from the file and acting in accordance with the guy it described. If I was going to get beyond the anger I needed to step back and realize there was a file, but that is really was about a guy that I made up. He was an actor, with lines and descriptions and wardrobe but when the play was over he vanished.

If there is an I, someone who doesn't vanish, he is the watcher, and writer of the story. I am the awareness, and I arise fresh moment to moment.

When we paint we begin to see the subtle interplay of space and light. How they combine and interact to create form. In the most basic sense everything is composed of these two essential elements space and light. Space or Shunyata which is commonly translated as emptiness, is the opening the ground of creation.

We usually think of space as the unoccupied area between tangible things. However, on a atomic level we know that space is everywhere. Really the thigns which we define as solid are space. Atoms and sub atomic particles are really energy, light if you will, and everything solid and that wich we call space exists as an interplay of space and light.

In the language of meditation we call this essential nature, rigpa or the nature of mind. When we look inward and experience the nature of mind we find the same two elements present. Here the Buddhist teachings refer to them as emptiness and awareness.

Often when we hear the word emptiness there is a sense of dissappointment. The western mind sees emptiness as lack, however the word emptiness is a poor translation of the concept of shunyata . Sogyal Rinpoche defines is as that which is free of permanence and non existence. Shunyata is the ground, the space in which all life and matter exists. It is not just the space of nothingness it is the space of existence and the great mother which gives place to all that we call form.

The other element of mind is awareness or consciousness. It is the awareness the intuitive mind. Pure presence. This union of space and awareness are our nature, they are the nature of mind and of all creation. To know this is the pinacle of all the teaching and to live in the awareness of this is the awakening of the Buddha, as we spend time with the truth of our nature everything become clear. In this calm presence the duality of self and toehr dissolve and we experience oneness there is no distinction between self and other pleasure and pain.