Discussion Facilitator: Bruce Cantwell. January 25, 2020.
For the last three weeks, we've been discussing Lao Tzu. This week I thought it would be fun to experience it directly through meditation.
Here are three translations of a section of Chapter 7.
A sound man by not advancing himself
Stays the further ahead of himself,
By not confining himself to himself
Sustains himself outside himself:
By never being an end in himself
He endlessly becomes himself. – Witter Bynner
The Master stays behind;
that is why she is ahead.
She is detached from all things;
that is why she is one with them.
Because she has let go of herself,
she is perfectly fulfilled. – Stephen Mitchell
So wise souls
leaving self behind move forward,
and setting self aside
stay centered.
Why let the self go?
To keep what the soul needs. – Ursula K. Le Guin
Here's a meditation from The Way of Effortless Mindfulness: a Revolutionary Guide for Living an Awakened Life by Loch Kelly
1. As you take the next breath, focus on the feeling of breath moving in your body. Unhook local awareness from the focusing and have it search your entire body-mind from head to toe to see if a self as an object or subject can be found. Allow the awareness to scan quickly and thoroughly until nothing is found.
2. Upon not finding a "self' located in any one place or looking from any one place, notice how awake awareness and aliveness are free and unconfined and seamlessly permeating.
3. Notice that the field of open and empty awareness is aware of itself, by itself, as itself. The awake field is infinitely aware from everywhere, interconnected to everything. The ocean of awareness knows all waves from inside the wave.
4. Feel that there is no boundary, no center, and no observing is occurring with no observer.
5. Notice the arising of your human body out of formless awake awareness, moment to moment.
6. Notice the quality of the Now, where everything is here all at once.
7. Let everything be as it is, ordinary and free.
Adapted from: The Way of Effortless Mindfulness
Both ancient wisdom and modern neuroscience agree that there is no location of a separate self in the brain. The brain is a symphony, but no conductor can be found. Living as if there were a small, separate self inside your head is living from a mistaken identity, which is the root of suffering.
When I ask people, "Where is your sense of self located?" many tell me it's in their body or upper body, but most say that their normal sense of "me" feels located in their head behind their eyes, looking out at the world and feeling down to their body. They feel enclosed in their head and separate from what they see. With effortless mindfulness, we address the location and formation of consciousness that limits awareness, mind, and [interconnected] Self. We do this not by creating, imagining, or cultivating positive states but by untying knots to reveal the natural condition of our heart-mind and Self. As a student of mine once said, "Everything feels empty and full. I am here and everywhere as if there is no separate self but also things are alive, and I feel like, "I'm just me."
The Buddhist word for emptiness…means that everything is empty of a separate, independent existence. For example, a flower is not a flower without its connection to water, to air, to sun, and to earth. Realizing emptiness helps relieve the suffering caused by the mental habit of a small, separate sense of self. This limited mental pattern of small self is attempting to relieve suffering by trying to be both independent and connected. Instead, the pointer of emptiness is actually saying that we are already interdependent or interconnected. From deliberate mindfulness, we have insight into the absence of a separate, solid self. With the experience of effortless mindfulness, it was a great revelation to me when I realized that the simplest and best definition of emptiness is "interconnectedness."
True well-being, the relief of suffering, is not just based on belief or positive thinking but comes from the core realization of interconnected Self, in which we directly experience the reality that we and other are not separate. No matter what difficulties we experience and what beliefs we may have, our true no-self Self is always here to help us come back into perspective, compassion, and wholeness.[1]
[1] Kelly, Loch. The Way of Effortless Mindfulness: a Revolutionary Guide for Living an Awakened Life. Sounds True, 2019.