The Ghost of Characters Past

March 9, 2017
Hi Fred,
After our meeting this week, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I spent some time thinking and writing about our discussion of the ghost of the character, largely because it provided a unique frame of reference for the process of clearing up. Although I wrote this initially for myself, I rewrote it thinking that it might be of interest to others. Feel free to share it (or not).
Love,
Vince

Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!

By

Vince Fortunato

Having woken up a few years ago to my true nature after many years of seeking and having experienced more than my share of glimpses, I thought, just like many others, that perhaps the game was over, so to speak. Boy, was that wrong!

For a while, I enjoyed a profound sense of freedom and peace that many experience when it is realized that you are that which you are looking for (the seeker is the sought), and that what you are is simultaneously empty and includes everything!

However, although I realized that my ‘me’ (the character) didn’t really exist, after a period of time, that sense of oneness moved from the foreground and into the background, while the sense of being a character – an individual – one again, took center stage.

(It was, by the way, at this time that I first reached out to Fred.)

However, rather than discuss what transpired for me during or immediately after awakening, I wanted to highlight what has now become readily apparent: that the post-awakening process is one of clearing out all of the conditioned patterns and belief systems so deeply embedded in this unit that form the psychological framework for the supposed existence of the character.

These patterns and belief systems form the basis of what Fred referred to in our recent meeting as the ghost of the character.

The trap that many experience when the ghost appears is to get discouraged by the presence of the ghost. That happened for me, as I suppose it happens for many others. I found myself suffering again. The continual apparitions of the ghost were not only discouraging, but also reinforced identification with my character. Goodbye, Awakeness.  Hello, Vincent.

However, one way out of this trap involves adopting a much more playful attitude toward the ghost of the character. First, as Fred has mentioned many times, own your awakeness! Stand as the awareness that you are. Second, realize that you have a new career: you are now a Ghostbuster (with apologies to Columbia Films).

By standing as awareness and owning that as your true nature and by accepting your new job as your own personal Ghostbuster, you no longer have to be afraid of the ghost or suffer when it appears. Instead, you encourage any apparitions of the ghost because now you realize that in doing so, you further strengthen your ability to stand as awareness.  (For those of you with training in various forms of mindfulness meditation, you will notice their similarly with standing as awareness and vigilantly watching for signs of the ghost. Add the practice of inquiry to this, and you have a very powerful set of tools to ‘fight’ the ghost of your character.)

So, how will you approach the clearing up process: as a victim who struggles with the ghost or as a Ghostbuster who approaches their work with joy? That choice is yours.

Here, I close with a Zen story.

Every morning before the day’s activities, Zen Master Zuigan Shigan would climb the mountain behind his monastery and then call out to himself, “Oh Master!”

He would answer himself, “Yes?”

“Are you awake?” he would ask.

Again, he would answer, “Yes, I am.” (Another translation of this exchange is “Be wide awake!” “Yes, sir!”)

Master Shigan would then shout, “Never be deceived by others, any day, any time” (or “under any circumstances”).

And he would reply, “No, I will not.”

Master Shigan went to work every day as a 9^th century Ghostbuster.