Ultimately...

Nobody knows.

Gurus, teachers and experts... they don't know.

Something is going on... something intrinsically vital, creative, dynamic, intelligent...

Yet ultimately ungraspable... mysterious. 

Whatever it is... it's doing this right now - effortlessly accomplishing itself in every moment.

That's it.

The rest is speculation.

Nothing But Everything

Duality in its broadest sense entails that reality be made up of zillions of independent, self-sustaining first causes. In fact we only need to find one such entity for duality to be true.

And actually we can find loads of them… but only conceptually! When we dive into our stories, concepts and memories, we can partition off reality into discrete entities. We do it all the time - it's a useful way of transacting in the world. But when we come back to what is really going on - when we take each moment anew - we encounter a seamless living momentum.

The only reality is this living momentum - this current happening. There is nothing that stands apart from this - where would it abide… yes, you guessed it, in the mind, in time, in memory. 

Right now happened things are thought things. Right here, in actuality there are no such things - only this seamless fizzing momentum… nothing but everything.

Liquid Life

 

In the normal everyday mode of cognition, rather than apprehending the impermanent flux of existence, we freeze-frame, fixate and conceptualize the flow. We see manifestation as comprising of discrete self-existing things. 

 

Just below this fixation mode is what might be called the process mode of cognition. When discursive thought eases and the tendency to fixate, conceptualize and abstract abates, there is a felt-sense of the happening of existence. This reflects how manifestation truly is. Existence is a happening.

This mode of perception is not something that is difficult to access - it's already how experience presents itself but is (or can be) overlaid with the narrative and fixations of thought. A baby operates from this process mode. A baby has no conception of things - there is just the fluid sweep of sensation and process. There is no narrative of the past - no memory-self - things simply are as they happen - outside of time and conceptualization. Process or flow is primary - before naming and fixating.

This sense of flow can arise in various circumstances: meditation, walking in the woods, perhaps a relaxing bath... or for no particular reason whatsoever - boom - just Life happening. This doesn't mean that there is no conception of apparent things or a sense of self. Once language, memory and conceptualizing have occurred it will never be unlearned. But it becomes secondary to the real-time momentum of process.

There is no thinking yourself into this (just as there is no thinking yourself into the aroma of freshly cut grass.) Just notice that it is already the case. There is sitting, reading, a car goes by, it's starting to rain... there is the activity of existence. Like the zen master said: no me, no bell, just the ringing. In this very timeless moment, no me, no rain, simply the happening of existence - boom!

Nonduality Uncertainty Principle

Some teachings propose that reality is a product of mind only and that the physical world does not exist. They seem so certain, but I can't quite resonate with this. Is it necessary to adopt this position in order to become awakened?

You're sitting still with eyes closed. Rain is pounding on the window. There is the hint of a damp metallic smell in the air. The hands tingle. Flickering lights play on the eyelids. The sound of a car... louder and louder. Now fading... gone... just the hiss of rain. Where am I in all this? Well, there is an ache in the shoulder and thoughts and moods flicker and pass. But really, right now, there is just a happening... in which a thought of a me is just another arising. And even saying this is too much.

What is plain and inescapable is that there is 'something' going on. There is something rather than nothing. This something-ness precedes thoughts and ideas - it's the very ground of all manifestations and appearances. And again, this is probably saying too much.

Nonduality by default contains this quality of the ineffable. I like to think of it as the nonduality uncertainty principle. The more we try to pin down the ultimate nature of reality, the more we miss it. By this I mean, the more we try to formulate this inexplicable event, the more we find that we are describing something relative - something that's not IT. We know that it is - that's undeniable - but ultimately we can't grasp it, describe it or formulate it.*



* Our attempts to account for this mysterious somethingness are inevitably based on our limited anthropocentric understandings and imaginings. We paint this inexplicable source in Man's image - our formulas are constructs of a biologically constrained intellect. The ultimate nature of this mysterious principle is by default as forever beyond our true grasp as quantum physics is to an earthworm.