Authorship Thinning into No-thing

When anything is said or written, where does it come from, and who says or writes it? Who can claim authorship, and how verifiable is that claim? The answer on a conventional level would seem to be so very obvious: “Well, I said it; I am the author!” But like all things that seem so obvious, there is another way of looking at this, and it is a fortunate person who is led to ask these deeper questions and to keep asking them until the “obviousness” of the usual answer becomes less certain.

In order to look into this inquiry deeply, we need not formulate any grand philosophy; we only need to closely observe our own experience. In any given moment, when a person becomes very settled, rested and still, when they want nothing and know nothing and are freed of the need to defend or defeat, then an authorless place is allowed to appear. From that authorless place, one is not speaking from memory or relating the present to the past. The complete reliance on the here-and-now in that immediate time, place and circumstance invokes an intelligence from which the ever-new can appear.

The speaker in that case would be hearing what is being spoken as if it were spoken by someone else; the speaker would be the first one instructed by what is being spoken. That is to say, the speaker is being educated and enlivened by what they themselves are speaking---how extraordinary! One cannot actually identify the source, as what is being expressed is not limited to the personality of the one expressing it. This need not sound odd to anyone of us who has ever found speech or writing occurring completely spontaneously and openly, without preparation or goal.

This authorless expression is not something that is cultivated, contrived or aspired to. It may seem to be a rare thing only because of our lifelong allegiance to the rumblings of the mind: the thoughts, emotions, experiences and stories that have seemed to be so very real for us. When we relax our hold a bit and allow all of these things to be as they are, we then allow this intelligence to reveal itself that is not bounded by the thoughts, emotions and experiences. The mirage created by thought is seen through, and once we are no longer transfixed by the mirage, something quite marvelous occurs.

For short moments, many times we continue to allow this authorless place to become unconcealed. This movement of unconcealing may happen sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but this doesn’t matter. We persist, never letting loose of our genuine enthusiasm and courageousness. We are sustained over and over again by the brilliant practice of short moments many times, the skillful means of a loving teacher and a direct teaching, and the support of a community of fellow discoverers.

We gain more and more confidence through our own direct experience that this authorless place is ever present and ever sustaining and is not something that we need to earn or acquire. When words are authorless, then the perceived gap between speaker and listener is given up, and no one is a stranger. Authorship thins into no thing or no person in particular, and what seemed impossible for a person before is now gloriously possible.

The Marriage of Total Grief and Total Joy

We are told throughout our lives to believe that our emotions have power over us. We learn that if we are, for instance, sad or depressed or grief-stricken, then this emotion is solid and real and it has the capacity to rule us for as long as we are wrapped in it. We are also led to believe that two opposing emotions cannot coexist at the same time. So, say for instance, one could not possibly feel great sadness and great happiness at the same time, as those two solid and substantial states would necessarily crowd one another out.

I now know from my own direct experience that all of this is completely untrue.

Recently I was waiting to go up to speak to about seventy lovely friends, and five minutes before that talk was to begin, I was given the unexpected news that a dear friend, a lovely young person full of kindness and compassion, had died suddenly. For a moment I simply stood there in shock with my hands clasped over my face. The grief came pouring in and I was totally absorbed by it. I felt all the deepest feelings welling up, and I was about to break into tears. But I also recognized that I would need to be at rest with this flood of emotion, because I would be momentarily addressing people who had not yet heard the news and that this was not the proper time to inform them.

I recollected myself, stood quietly for a minute and let everything be as it is. I then went up front to the stage, trembling with emotion as I sat down in the chair in front of a sea of wondering faces. When it was my turn to speak, I had no idea what I would say. However, all of a sudden a vivid image came into my head: the lovely lupine flowers that we have beside the roadside in summer. I spoke of how when the lupines are picked and placed in a vase, they still have the life and intelligence to move towards to sun, separating themselves from one another to give each stem enough space to grow. I described how these flowers, like all the seasonal flowers, had a time of life and then they died. The metaphorical relationship between the flowers and what had happened with our young friend was very present for me, and I was engulfed by intense grief.

But then, as I just sat there and let the emotions wash over me, I could see that grief was not the only thing present, even if it was overwhelmingly present. Simultaneous to the grief and equally at hand was an awe-inspiring joy and gratitude. I could not say that the joy and gratitude was for anything in particular, but there it was in equal measure to the crushing grief.

How could this be? I was not in a position just then to figure it out, and thank goodness for that. Instead, I was in a very auspicious instant of total clarity, watching something quite extraordinary happen: two tremendous feelings that I had never experienced at one time together were totally and completed wedded to one another in that precious moment.

We completed the talk, and I think that it is fair to say that I came off that stage a different person from the one who went up to it. I had seen, in my own direct experience, that the names for emotions don’t matter. Whatever description we give to things, it is all one incredibly beneficial energy flowing in a marvelous and miraculous way. Once this is seen, then it is also seen that there is nothing to be avoided and nothing to be afraid of. Life in all its glory is ever-present in the here and now, and it is only our descriptions that distract us from that gift.

I am reminded of an ancient teaching which I will paraphrase here: Wisdom is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If we wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is merely the play of the mind. When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail. Be serene in the oneness of things, and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves. With a single stroke we are freed from bondage.

What Does "Reading" Really Mean?

The name of this blog is "Read, Relax, Recognize," and as I begin the series of posts that will follow, it will be helpful to look at each of those three terms to see what they really mean.
For instance, what does the word "read" actually mean? The first and most obvious assumption is that it is what we do with the printed word. Most of us read every day, whether it is email, web articles, books, instructions on food packaging, advertising and countless other things. It seems so fundamental and natural for us to be able to look at a page and know what is being communicated.
A key element that might not be so obvious is the fact that the words are actually a sort of code which we have the ability to discern. We did not have that coding ability when we were small children, and if the words are in an unfamiliar foreign language, we won't be able to get the meaning. One could say that the key element in the interaction with words is not merely seeing them or hearing them, but being able to truly decode them.
A lack of understanding might come not only from not being able to decode and understand the language, but from not WANTING to understand. A racist who reads information that contradicts his prejudices will certainly understand the words, but he simply will not be able to process and assimilate the meaning because of his resistance to what the words point to.
Lack of understanding can also occur because of lack of attention. If we are not alert or are disinterested in what is being communicated, then communication and understanding will not take place.
Reading is not limited to man-made language. A person who is very familiar with the natural surroundings can read the natural signs: how will the weather change, when is it the right time to plant a crop, is this a place animals would come to feed, is this a plant that can be used as a medicine, and so on. It is an art that has almost totally disappeared in the modern world, but it is nonetheless a form of reading.

Now I come to the most significant interpretation of the word "reading." We are living a life filled with a profusion of experiences that are difficult to understand. A loved one dies, we get a severe illness, nations go to war, children starve....One day we are hopeful that we can find a solution, but the next day we fully despair. We seem to be under assault by things we cannot understand and for which we have no solution. We may end up just blocking it out in boredom, apathy, distraction and medication, but the flow of life is unrelenting.
Am I now going to give you a gimmicky solution to this age-old dilemma? No, thankfully not! But what I will say is that the response to this challenge has a lot to do with reading. Can we understand what the flow of life is bringing us if we are totally distracted by our thoughts and emotions about the experiences? Can we be discerning and clear if our minds are totally unclear? That is, can we "read" our experience fully if we are confused about the language?
Well, okay, fine, but how do we have a clear view; how do we find peace when our minds are constantly raging? In a very simple way, we take a stand, we make a choice....we refuse to be distracted. We do that in each moment of our experience, and we keep coming back to that place of non-distraction and rest over and over and over again, rather than being carried along by the distraction. We remain clear, unmoved, alert and aware in each moment, regardless of what storms swirl around us.
We can do this for short moments, over and over again, and like a baby taking little steps, falling and getting up to take more baby steps, we become confident in our capacity to remain alert and clear in each moment.
So, dear friends, the reading that we are doing in this case is the utmost reading we can do: skillfully discerning what is important and what is not....reading the signs, as it were. When we see that our thoughts and emotions don't need to control us, we can read without distraction. And it begins with short moments, many times, until it becomes spontaneous.