Here is always here and never elsewhere. Here defines you, it shows you your field of experience and influence which are made of immediate inner and outer sensations and actions. This is “Presence,” and it’s never gone anywhere. It’s the foundation of our lives.

 

By Johnathon Lee

“This very body and mind are always the site of awakening, in every step you take. Whatever you do, wherever you go: it is all awakening.” ~ Daoxin 

“When students today fail to make progress, where’s the fault? The fault lies in the fact that they don’t have faith in themselves… Do you want to get to know the ancestors and Buddhas? They’re none other than you, the people standing in front of me listening to this lecture!” ~ Linji 

I’ve always felt that it’s arrogant to have faith in myself, and foolish to have faith in an idea. 

Being wrong hurts, and when we’re hurt over and over, we stop trying. Being ridiculed hurts. Being abandoned is torture. So, the young seeker learns to stop venturing out. Staying in is staying safe; a lifetime in quarantine. 

If you’re lucky, like I was, you’ll keep the journey going from within. If you’re even luckier, you’ll pick up an old book with the word “Buddha” in it. Then it all starts to change. 

Yet you might find that this journey also ends in frustration, ennui and disappointment. The books start devouring each other, Dharma mates vie for supremacy, and teachers out themselves as human. You can keep walking for a long time before realizing that the road dead ended a thousand miles ago. 

Suddenly, meditation seems like a waste of time, and the pile of Dharma books are a mound of cold ashes. What do you do then? 

Suffer… a lot. Without a Buddhist narrative to make sense of things, the worldly world rushes in like a muddy flood. Suddenly, you’re thrust into a noisy whirlwind of yearning and alienation. “What’s the point?” is joined by its sneering friend, “You’re too dumb to know it,” or its heady cousin, “You make your own, but you’re bad at it.” 

It’s easy to hate when we hurt, and easy to hurt when we hate. This includes ourselves. 

My hope is that you have someone during those hard times, even if they have to be at arm’s length. A little love goes a long way, and love leads to duty. Duty can get you to dawn. 

You might find yourself leapfrogging and rabbit holing, trying to find a cause or interest to elevate your sense of purpose. Some people find it and grasp hold of it indefinitely. Others keep leapfrogging as each fragile paddy sinks from view.

Sometimes we don’t have the energy to leap, so we sink with it. Down and down into that frozen dark, or out and out into a hot shadow. It goes far and deep, my friend. There are wonders there too, but they come from you, from your way of romanticizing your own pain. 

At this point, it’s best to seek treatment. The depths eventually lose their charms and you’re left immobilized by your own fractured autobiography and the smothering immensity of the unknown. Here’s where I come in, knocking on your door with a blank pamphlet. 

On the mend, you might chance upon an everyday awakening. A practical enlightenment that lends a freshness to ordinary life. It won’t be abrupt or overwhelming like a spiritual awakening, but more like a soft rain that wandered in from a distant storm. Lightly, lightly. You’ll see the sorrow thinning, like salt on step. What is it the rain plops and drops? 

“You are here.” Where else could you be?

Here is always here and never elsewhere. Here defines you, it shows you your field of experience and influence which are made of immediate inner and outer sensations and actions. This is “Presence,” and it’s never gone anywhere. It’s the foundation of our lives. 

What is this room I’m in but the entirety of known space? “What can I do from here?” is the key to every cell. How many of your stories can survive when you embody this place and time? Basic presence doesn’t leave much room for Big Ideas. 

You’ve gotten to a blank slate, where all of your stories have returned to your senses. You’ve returned the sun to brightness and the sky to blue. You’ve given your face back to the mirror, and the river to flowing. This is what “here” is like. “Now” is like a hill, beginning and ending with each experience and each experience transforming into the next. The moment isn’t an eternal stream; nor is it like a series of flashing frames. It’s a caterpillar scooting along without leaving a trace. 

This is “Simplicity,” a safe space to tell our stories. Much of that pain, longing and misery came from being ungrounded. Things get complex when we forget basic presence. We can pass the days making dreams upon dreams, suffering when gravity brings us back down to Earth. 

Your mind will wander, and it’s healthy for it to do so. You will understand the world through narratives, as there’s no other way to understand anything. Wellbeing comes when those narratives are pure and simple, meaning they include mindfulness of basic presence and practical action. 

That’s a practical awakening. There are some other landmarks after that like Relativity and Adaptability, but we don’t need to go into them right now. This is enough to start turning things around. You’ll feel better than you have in years. At least until the best big dilemma that sends you spiraling toward the deep again. 

Then you might feel the calling again. That old Dharma bell ringing out from a memory. “Buddha?” 

That’s where I am now, so we’re all caught up. I’ve always been torn in two by a tendency toward mysticism and an insistence on empiricism. That kept me moving from tradition to tradition. Yet what practical awakening showed me is that truth is an action. It isn’t enough for something to be reasonable. It isn’t enough for it to be experiential or helpful. It needs to be all three. 

Even though the more mystical aspects of Zen aren’t reasonable in a physical sense, they’re reasonable in an evolutionary sense. There’s a reason why more people are spiritual than not spiritual. That’s because our spiritual ancestors survived and thrived better, so they had more kids than our non-spiritual ones. 

So, it’s reasonable to be mystical. The challenge for me was in finding the most reasonable mysticism to believe. It turned out to be Zen. 

I’ve had dozens of mystical experiences while practicing, things that have floored me into joyful tears. I have to be willing to admit them as evidence, and proceed with a wager. 

Great Awakening comes from Great Faith; faith that awakening already is. If faith is lacking, then it can come from Great Doubt; doubting the stories we tell ourselves about basic presence. This takes Great Effort, meaning vigilant mindfulness of flowing nature of experiences. 

All of this to get to where we already are: here. 

 

Photo: Pixabay

Editor: Dana Gornall

 

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Johnathon Lee
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