iRealization: We’re discussing difficulties in the path. I remember feeling annoyed with Zen koans. Like “This stone is enlightenment.” Well, thank you very much.
*laughs*
What does that mean? It wasn’t helpful. You’re trying to break the code, trying to find the key. Because you know there’s a truth to it, that’s the only reason you are a seeker. You know that you don’t know. That becomes the seeking. And then you know the words have nothing to do with it. You are seeking for the actual meaning of it. What does it mean? Does it transform something? One is waiting for the transformation to happen. One is waiting to experience it. All these things are difficulties, in my opinion. Why are these teachings said in this particular way?
Mark: In my case it comes back to the emotional triggers. I think that’s a staple. It’s displayed in the world, people get mad, frustrated… It’s something I can see and attest to. It happens constantly.
Pharrell: For me one of the most difficult thing is that I know that I am not a thought, I am not a perception, but in regard to sensations it’s hard. Especially the sensation behind my face, behind my eyes. When I was moving away from thoughts, I could rely by the sensation behind my eyes, and now, if I stop relying on that sensation, where would I go? Where am I? It’s strange because there are a lot of pointers to that, but I always end up trying to grasp them, and what I can grasp it’s not what knows.
iRealization: What exactly is a sensation?
Pooja: Imagination?
iRealization: No, you feel something. What is it? There are only five senses. Smell is sensation, taste, touch too. Right? Sensations come from the senses.
Pharrell: When I say sensations it has to do with the bodily sensations, to the sense of touch.
iRealization: Touch is the biggest one, you know? Because it’s on all the time. Very physical, one might say.
Pharrell: Yeah, it’s always present.
iRealization: What exactly in your body can you feel? Where is the locus of that feeling?
Pharrell: It seems like it is behind my eyes, or behind my face. I can't be precise exactly.
iRealization: The eyes are a camera. The light comes to the eyes. It goes to your brain, and the process of sight is happening. The light has been processed to create the visual landscape, or what you see. This is the sense of sight. What about it is confusing you?
Pharrell: There’s the sensation of my feet, I know that as I know the sensation behind my eyes, but it seems that this sensation is seeing and feeling other sensations.
iRealization: If you say “I see the visual sense”, is it the eye seeing it? Or the light seeing? What is the one that is seeing it?
Pharrell: It’s the eye.
iRealization: The eye cannot see. The eye is inert matter.
Pharrell: I was not referring to the physical eye. But I was seeing it.
iRealization: Ah! Exactly. Ok. Something else is seeing it, you know?
Pooja: So is the question here who or what is perceiving the seeing?
iRealization: Yes! So, who or what is perceiving the sensation? Whether it’s all sight, touch, etc., all five senses are the same. Inert matter. Sound or light does not know of anything. The sound does not know that it is sound.
Pharrell: I don’t know. Maybe it’s out of habit.
iRealization: It’s a habit.
Pharrell: I have no proof of what I’m saying.
iRealization: Precisely. So you have to follow the actual thing and say “Oh! That means that it’s being created in the mind, based on the name and forms that I know about it.” Otherwise you wouldn’t know that it’s a sound, right?
Pharrell: I was always coming back to that sensation. And now I see that sensation is perceived too. But now I don’t know where to go.
iRealization: First of all, we have to understand. What do you mean by “I have to go”? Just as you said, the I that perceives it, is not the same I we are talking about. The I that perceives, what we call I in a normal conversation, is not actually the one that perceives because perception as such is not really happening. What you call perception is actually imagination. Without imagination one cannot perceive anything.
Pooja: Is it the perception that is imagination? Or is it what we label it after we perceive it?
iRealization: It’s inseparable. Labeling and perception are all happening together.
Pooja: One thing comes after the other, right? It’s almost automatic.
iRealization: Yeah, you can say it’s one thing after the other. But if one of them stops, all of them stop.
Pooja: So, how do you stop perception?
iRealization: What is there to perceive, you see? One has to understand what is being perceived. First question is, what are you perceiving?
Pooja: Exactly. Fundamentally, I don’t think I’m perceiving anything right here.
iRealization: Then there’s nothing to stop, you know? So, imagination is going on. That’s what’s happening.
Mark: When you say that perception is imagination, is that because when we say “We perceive X or Y”, that experience happens because there’s a relation between the knower and the known? There’s me perceiving a tree, me perceiving the screen, me perceiving everything.
iRealization: When I say “I perceive a tree”, what does that mean?
Pooja: You are aware of the existence of the tree.
iRealization: Let’s say, there’s a painting. In that painting there’s a house, a horse and a tree. Are you looking at that painting and saying “I see a tree”? Is there a tree to perceive there?
Pharrell: Yeah, it’s just a painting.
iRealization: It’s just a painting, and it’s the whole painting. The full painting. There’s no horse there. There’s no tree there. It’s just the complete painting of all the things that are in the painting. There is no part of the painting that says “This is the horse.”, “This is the house.” The whole painting is one thing. Then, who says there is a tree there, and a horse there? And how can one say that by looking at it, you see?
Pooja: We say that because we are used to separate things, right?
iRealization: Not only separating them. You’re also naming them, you’re describing them, and you’re storing the concepts of what is a horse.
Pooja: Right. When the whole picture is there and will always be.
iRealization: The picture in this analogy is the whole universe. Which is always in flux, in change. There’s no independent, static thing, ever. So, there cannot be anything in particular, in any case.
Pooja: The moment you label something it already went. Changing, and changing and changing…
iRealization: Gone! Yes. For example, if you say “This is the river.” The river you pointed to is gone, you know?
Pharrell: The division that we make starts because we are seeing ourselves first, right? Only then can we separate other things. If I say “I see a tree”, I’m referring to this body, to the mind, to the senses. If I recognize that I’m not the body, not the senses, there is no division, right?
iRealization: Isn’t it? Why does the whole universe come into being, in the dream, and you say and feel that you’re the man, the body?
Pooja: You’re part of the painting, as well.
iRealization: You have painted it, you’ve created the whole thing, and then you say I’m this small part of it. The minute you say I, it means not-I.
Pooja: That’s the problem, the habit. Talking to you, I realize that I’m always mixing it with the body, with the mind.
iRealization: Correct. “I am the body.” is the very basic idea.
Pooja: I’m not referring to “I” always as the body. Sometimes it’s the mind.
iRealization: Mind and body are the same. It’s always the body. Which is a point of interaction. The so-called heart, which is not the actual heart, it’s the point where you feel I when you put the hand on your chest and refer to you. You’re pointing to where the reflection takes place. Where you feel the gut and you feel movement, you feel fear – all those things happening there. You know what I’m talking about? The center of the body where you feel “I”?
Pooja: Yeah, most of the people point to the chest.
iRealization: Yeah, everybody can feel their self there. Whenever someone says something bad, they will feel bad there. That is the feeling part, then the mind is the thinking part.
Pooja: Is there association with that and the solar plexus?
iRealization: No. It is completely abstract and it has no locus in the physical plane. It is a memory.
Pooja: It’s almost like muscle memory.
iRealization: That is a physical point where the I is felt. It’s actually a physical point in the sense that it feels physical, but it is not always felt. If you are distracted, you will not feel it. It comes and goes! It is actually a thought and the thought is “I am the body.”
Whenever you say “That will happen to me.”, or “This will happen tomorrow.”, who is that I? Without the body, that I cannot exist.
Pooja: But I need to do things tomorrow, right?
iRealization: Then we go back to free will. Is there any free will for an independent body? Do you have a choice to breathe? Do you have a choice to digest your food? Can you reverse it on command? You don’t control your own body.
Pooja: Yeah, we have no choice whatsoever.
iRealization: Then there’s no question of what I will do tomorrow.
Pooja: Because tomorrow doesn’t even exist in the first place, right?
iRealization: Yes. Because we live in a world of matter, we say “tomorrow”, “time”, “now”. And we create the unreality that doesn’t exist. Then you live in the illusion.
Pooja: Illusion is the identification with those ideas, because ultimately there’s nothing to do.
iRealization: It is not identification with those ideas. it is identification with the I being this body. From that root cause, everything becomes mine. It is the very root illusion, which is pointing to the problem. If you see it, if you see it exactly now, there cannot be a problem. The minute you see it, it no longer is what you thought it was. In unawareness it was happening.
Pooja: The thing is, I think I see it, but I’m not sure if I see it.
iRealization: You cannot see it, so relax. Anything seen is not it. It is again imagination. So the point we’re saying is – relax! – whatever you imagine, whatever thought, has no meaning anymore.
Pooja: All there is, is observing, right?
iRealization: Observing only the illusion, no? Perception of illusion is a foolish thing, no?
Pooja: Totally foolish.
iRealization: Then why observe? There’s nothing to do, per say. Not even to observe. What will you observe? Whatever arises, only that can be observed. Only something specific can be observed.
Pooja: When sometimes I realize about it, there is something trying to pull me back and then doubts start to come.
iRealization: Normal process because it’s memory. Anything that is there in memory is based on illusion, and illusion is fear. You know yourself. You don’t know anything else. Everything else is unknown, actually – you think you know but it is not really true. So, anything else is unknown. One can only know Oneself. And if one needs knowledge to feel secure, that is where the problems start to arise. Imagine if you are trying to know something other than yourself. Like what will happen tomorrow and all that. Seeking knowledge for security is the most foolish thing, no? It’s like running behind the mirage for water.
Pooja: Totally agreed.
iRealization: So knowledge, which is the mind, has no meaning.
Pooja: It’s the complete foolishness.
iRealization: So now, nothing to know. Nothing to seek. For whom? For me! But which me is that, that wants nothing to seek?
Photography - Courtesy of Abed Ismail
