We often hear in nondual teachings about the groundless nature of Reality. We may have instinctual glimpses into this ‘non graspable’, ‘no reference points’, ‘nothing to hold on to’, ‘no understanding is possible’ nature of experience during the path, or even realize this thoroughly and non-conceptually with our whole being.
Groundlessness may initially appear as blackness, unfathomable formless Void, simultaneously terrifying and compelling, gentle and all-consuming, that we perhaps encounter in our meditation practice. It may appear as the enigmatic in-between zone between two thoughts, between waking and sleeping, dreaming and deep sleep … as the self-cognizant space underlying the discursive mind. Or, it may appear as existential rawness when the rug is suddenly pulled out from under us, and we experience the loss of imaginary continuity that we tend to project in our lives in the form of relationships, life conditions, or sense of identity.
In these precious moments it is possible to realize that we have been clinging to the idea of inherent continuity and knowability, and thus fabricated an artificial ground and a false sense of safety. If we are willing to let go and relax and in this abrupt sense of baselessness, which can at times literally feel like dying, something unexpected takes place. Pema Khandro Rinpoche says this in an entrancing manner: “It’s when we lose the illusion of control — when we’re most vulnerable and exposed — that we can discover the creative potential of our lives”.
This is a possibility to look into the nature of the contrived foundation. The flow of images, projections, ideas and narratives which constitute the ‘human world’ is an empty maze of disjointed, ephemeral, bubble-like apparitions, generating an illusory (but very physically felt) sense of inherent existence and substance. What happens when this world gets suddenly disrupted? The whole dream shakes and trembles, and we experience raw, unguarded immediacy.
When you find yourself in this gap, this in-between zone, this bardö — between the death of one reality and the birth of another — you are in direct contact with the unmanipulated, baseless nature of existence. This is a a profoundly rapturous moment.
Some people find it naturally electrifying. The stark aliveness of subjective exposure is like an explosion of openness, igniting curiosity and inexplicable trust. For others, however, the absence of security, predictability and control triggers instinctual reactivity, defensive argumentation, wild fight and flight, which eventually resolves in a silent gesture of existential dissociation.
The exciting thing is, you never know how you are going to respond. That is the thrill of the unknowable aliveness. In a way, the whole spiritual practice is nothing but preliminary training for these mysterious gaps. Reality is like a hunter — it’s looking for a moment of vulnerability. The ground shakes, the abyss appears, devouring you. Can you find a controller of experience in this naked flash?
This fathomless, dimensionless in-between is now my home. It used to be something I would taste in moments of death, deep silence and ecstatic revelation; in nondual openings, existential rupture or spontaneous meditation. Now the gap is all there is, so it’s no longer a gap but undifferentiated luminosity, bare primal clarity. It is simply this ordinary mind which is by its nature mindless, this wildly ridiculous simplicity: the natural state of No Mind.
I remember a sense of strange reverence and awe when I read the following sentence from Pema Chödrön many years ago, in the midst of my dark night: “Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found”. The impact of these words stayed with me as I encountered again and again a visceral, violent shock in the foundation of my being — a mysterious, subtler than subtle force that I sometimes call Shattering.
I had my initial shaktipat experience at the age of 31, which was followed by a beautiful but intense phase of abundant grace in my life. Nondual glimpses and flushes of blissful kundalini energy alternated with periods of incomprehensible depression and devastating voidness. After about three years of roller coaster, I met someone with whom I felt I could have the kind of relationship I had always longed for.
The beginning of this connection was ecstatic and beautiful, intimately intertwining with my awakening process. Catalyzed by a profound heart opening, I spontaneously entered unity consciousness and witnessed in awe the whole experiential field dissolving into energetic, fluid vibrancy as no other than my own consciousness. The suffering from the past seemed to be wiped away, and I cried tears of gratitude, recognition and wonderment. I thought I must have entered the Awakening the nondual traditions talked about, I felt confident and in love, and for the first time in my life the future looked bright.
However, within a half a year the relationship disintegrated in an unexpected, brutal and painful manner. I can’t really explain how the shock went so deep, but the ‘I’ was never able to recover from it. It felt like my psyche shattered. The pure vibrant Self reflection, which had revealed itself in the initial shaktipat experience and opened into mystical immersion during the relationship, simply shattered into a thousand pieces. My life disappeared into the Void and I was left shaking, no longer able to find familiar ground, feeling hopelessly lost, with a sense of being ‘burned’, in stark silence, as waves of shock penetrated the gut and the heart.
Six years later, after a difficult dark night and an intense process of single-minded inquiry, duality permanently collapsed, and I died fully and completely into This.
During my dark night I met a dzogchen teacher who gave me a foretaste of what lies on the other side. It has taken me years to clarify that introductory empty radiance. Or to be more correct, it has taken all these years for that energy of Shattering to clear out the system, move fully in, and take over. It pierced the veil of confusion, cut through the dualistic clinging, broke through all knowing, and established itself as the inconceivable This.
Chöd is my blood lineage, I was practicing it already before knowing about it. Once upon a time, in the magical island of Kauai, I was meditating alone in the wilderness when a thunderstorm broke and a lightning bolt struck from within. Nine years later, just before total cessation, I saw a vision of a black wrathful deity. I don’t remember much these days, but all these energetic impressions seem to somehow interconnect.
It just so happened that my way has been the path of excess. I did not seek intensity, and for someone with a somewhat sensitive nature it has not always been easy. It has pushed me to the edges of my capacity and resilience in so many ways. Yet in this play of groundless devouring, discontinuity and creative passion I have found original release, ease beyond ease. Most importantly, I have found genuine compassion.
Someone wrote this:
when the ground shatters
the sky naturally explodes
just This and nothing else
Yes … when the mirror of Self shatters the clarity and vividness explodes, shines unconstrained, penetrating all. It’s indestructible. In Tibetan this clear light mind is called ösel — electrifying, self-cognizant luminosity.
The impenetrable vajra mind.
So let us introduce Groundlessness.
There is no base
no path, no process
even the purest form of knowing
disappears in the unfathomable pause
Undifferentiated blissful potential
silent expanse
inconceivable
n o t h i n g n e s s
You relax into it
dissolve into it
die into it
become it
It swallows itself, fully
Then it begins to MOVE
It emanates itself, endlessly
in timeless simultaneity
in a spontaneous sequence of infinite ecstatic emissions
That is quite disorienting
as the way it moves
is utterly UNFIXED
uninhibited, unpredictable
contradictory, nonsensical
It’s an electric shock
there is no control, no safety
it’s Just Happening
Undifferentiated vastness
is forced all the way IN
violent, immersive, zero-distance
everything goes BLIND
It’s absolutely terrifying for the watching
to go fully in Phenomena
unable to see
to be pushed into the display
into the SEEN
Expanse contracts into dimensionless space
and explodes as the primal sky
So that peaceful pure potentiality
is marvelously deceiving
it Shakes and turns upside down
Form is formlessness
this loving dissolution
can feel rather terrifying
But when formlessness is form
that is Pure Terror
Pure Love
Thus, from perfect unknowability
emerges perfect gnosis
the Ultimate Paradox
deathless actionless activity
perfect wisdom sequence, PLAY
This is the viewless view of Emptiness
there is nothing intellectual about it
it's completely Mindless
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