The Looking Glass: Language as Mirror, from the First Person Point of View

THE LOOKING GLASS
Language as Mirror

Written by Fred Davis
Converted to First Person by Cindy Zuker

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I am already awake. It’s how I can read Fred’s article and write these words. I can’t achieve what I already am.

The only issue here, is I’m not who I think I am. There is only me, yet I tend to forget it. There is only spaciousness yet it apparently contracts around this seeming human. It’s fine. When I’m ready to be clear, I just need to find a bright mirror—like Fred’s article—which is also me. It’s all me!

I am the awareness that’s reading and writing these words through this human. I am reading the words, the human is not reading them. (Reading glasses never mistake themselves for being the reader; humans almost always do.)

I don’t need to wake up. All that has to occur is to recognize what I truly am. Notice what already is. I don’t need to make it so difficult.

Stop seeking outwardly for a few minutes. Reverse my plain old attention, what feels like my personal attention, and turn it around. Look back instead of out.

Notice how easy it is to move attention. Notice how whatever attention finds tends to expand. Notice how easy it is to pull globalized awareness—background, unfocused awareness that is always running—and reform it into localized awareness.

Notice how when localized awareness drops away, after I’ve seen what I wanted to see, globalized boundless awareness is once again here. It just happens; I don’t have to do anything. It’s always here, always running, and always awake. It’s all part of me—the one thing going on.

Awakeness is not a trait of mine, it’s what I actually am—always have been, always will be, cannot fail to be.

Check it out… Really look… What do I see when I look back at myself? What do I find? Can I actually find myself?

No. I can’t find anyone because there’s nothing objective to see. There’s a sense of something being here, but there’s nothing locatable. But clearly there’s something here, and it’s absolutely alive. I can feel it. It’s a stirring, a certain presence, behind my eyes or in my chest, or both…

It’s undefinable, but it’s here. Always. I can feel it if I let myself…. Let myself….

The all-who-are-me have a word for the living presence I discover when I look back and try to find myself and can’t. It’s not something, but neither is it nothing, hence it’s been arrived at to refer to it as NO-THING.

This no-thing, this pure subjectivity, this keen awareness that’s looking out through the eyes of this human is what I am. I have been on an endless search for something unfindable. It ends when it ends, and not before.

Nondual teachings say, “The eye can’t see itself.” This means that I am that invisible eye. I can’t see myself when I look back because I am the no-thing doing the looking! Let this settle in… Let it hit me… Feel it… Right here, that bit of line, is the wide open Gateless Gate, enlightenment in a nutshell. What I’ve been look with is what I’ve been looking for!

I can’t see myself, I can’t find myself, but I can sense myself. I can know myself. Right now! In fact, I can’t know anything else! I can’t know it later… There is no later. So, I notice myself, I know myself right now! Paying attention to attention!

I don’t need to wake up. I am already awake and I am already here. Ever since I’ve been on this so-called spiritual journey, I’ve been looking for “some other level” of awakeness. Listen closely: There is no other level of awakeness. This everyday awakeness I experience every day of my life is the very same awareness all the saints and sages have talked about since time immemorial. There is only the single awareness, only Not-Two! I am that very awareness. Every step on my so-called spiritual path I’ve been looking for “some other kind” of awareness. There is no other kind of awareness!!

It feels like this human body contains consciousness, that it’s the holder of this most precious thing—my awareness. It doesn’t! It can’t! This human body can’t hold me! I hold everything! I am the aware space that everything appears in. THIS aware space! The ONLY aware space there is! I permeate all humans, every single one, inside and out. There isn’t actually something called “my consciousness.”

I am “my consciousness” and simultaneously everyone’s “personal consciousness.” Yet, there is no personal consciousness. It’s not something I have. It’s what I am. Not even death can take this from me. When this body dies, I just change channels. My focused attention goes elsewhere. I dial up another dream.

I’ve set myself up with quite a convincing story of the notion that awareness, or consciousness, is something I have. If I’m really interested in this long sought-after spiritual awakening that’s been going on for damned near ever, then more than just reading this, I must close my eyes, relax and go through this exercise…

Notice that without benefit of sight I can still tell I’m alive. I still know I am, sight or not…

Would I still know I am alive without sound? Would I still be able to sense the usual subtle pulsing of aliveness within this body? Of course I do. I know. Without benefit of sight or sound I can still tell I’m alive. I cannot fail to know I am.

If I was in a sensory deprivation chamber I would still know I’m alive. This knowing is not dependent on sensations, perceptions, thought, memories, or any other information. It’s not dependent on anything. In fact, everything is dependent on it! This knowing is primary. It’s the only thing for which there is no opposite.

Can I imagine not knowing myself?

No, I can’t. This knowing has no opposite, thus it’s unimaginable. It cannot not be! Knowing would have to be present to report that it doesn’t know itself! The question collapses…

This knowing is the One True No-thing.

But this knowing is really knowingness, isn’t it? I am not static knowing. I am not some kind of grand noun. I am beyond noun-ness. All these years I’ve been looking for some kind of vague, grand object so I could experience myself. I cannot experience what I am.

I am beyond verbness, too, but verbness in a display that is constantly shifting, morphing, changing from one extreme to the other and back; evolving and devolving forward and back is always arising to me, to that-which-does-not-move-but-is-not-static. I arise to myself. You-who-are-also-me vaguely call this verbness “the world,” which expands and contracts to suit my purposes. Regardless of what it is—a thought, a sound, a room, or a whole universe—whatever arises is not other than me.

I am what I know, and what I know, I am.

The seeker is the sought.

Notice this knowingness. Notice it now. Become conscious of it, hold it in attention—be the attention to recognize it clearly. Feel it. In the absence of this knowingness, there is no world. In the presence of this knowingness the world arises, fully formed. I don’t have to do anything; it just happens.

Notice this knowingness doesn’t need to wake up, that it can’t wake up because it is already awake. See that it’s knowingness come to know itself. This knowingness-knowing-itself is called conscious awareness. Unconscious awareness is still awake and alive and aware, but not consciously. Either way it’s still me. One way I’m cloudy and one way I’m clear, but there’s just one thing going on… It’s me.

I am already Home. I have always been Home. There is nothing other than Home.

If I am already Home, how would I ever find it by looking for it? I’d be looking away from it. I find it only when I notice it’s where I already am, always have been, and always will be, because there is nothing other than Home. Look! There is nothing other than This!

THIS This! THIS very This I already am! I don’t find it by going after it; I find it by stopping within it. Any directions on how to get Home actually lead away from Home. They are great for tiring me out! And it’s all fun… until it’s not…

Take a look… What have I been using all these years in search of enlightenment? Awareness. What is it that watches breath in meditation, or watches thoughts, or tries to let go of thoughts, or gets annoyed because of the nagging now—to be able to enjoy a peaceful moment? What prays? What asks, “Who am I?”… Awareness.

Awareness has been on a forever search for awareness, some other awareness. There is no other awareness.

This is it. THIS This is all there is.

Oneness cannot find otherness no matter how hard and long the looking goes on… because there is no otherness for oneness to find. The definition of oneness could be no-other-to-find. If I’ve been searching for some other, as I have been, and there is no other, how long will I keep looking? If all is oneness, where do I imagine I’ve been standing while I’m looking for oneness? In the oneness!

Always! Forever!

So as long as I insist on looking forward, seeking outside myself, I’ll never find myself, never hook up with myself, never ever “awaken,” at least not in this lifetime. So for goodness sakes, STOP.

Why do I continue this compulsive looking for something that’s totally unfindable? I’ve been on the hot trail of a phantom… STOP!

Once I sense what I am, once I take that giant leap to the utterly obvious and recognize what I am—that which is looking—there may or may not be a sharp sense of realization.

It doesn’t matter. All that bliss and fireworks is fun, but just candy for the ego. It’s unnecessary and has nothing to do with awakening (any more than a car has to do with a driver’s body). It’s simply a vehicle… It’s about the damn trip, not the vehicle! Bells and whistles are just bells and whistles, distractions.

What matters is simple recognition, because however I display myself to myself, I’m almost surely going to have to come back to fresh conscious recognition over and over again. This is the discipline part, the process part. This is where I use my unit to help. Don’t try to transcend this unit, use it! This unit is a tool. Use it.

All the ramifications of this seeing/being What Is are not immediately obvious. They will fill in as my understanding increases. I will see what I need to see when I need to see it, not before. I must work with what I have and more will come. This is how it works, on a need-to-know basis.

I may say to myself, “It can’t be this simple.” It is. Recognition starts with “not” seeing the seer. No seer, no seen, only seeing! Only an object can see or be seen, and I, of course, am not an object. All objects arise within me, arise to me. I am what is primary. There may be a whole world of relatively real stuff, but I am the One True No-thing.

I may want to claim this seeing, it is so amazing. But who is it that wants to claim it? The unit can’t hold such seeing in its head, can’t store it up for later recall. Only I can behold me—and only right now.

Liberation is about right now; this moment. Am I consciously awake to this current arising? Yesterday’s seeing is dust. Other than a gnawing reminder, it has no present value. Freedom is now or never, here or nowhere.

This simple recognition of my true nature is not the end of my apparent journey, but it can be the end of all this compulsive seeking I’ve been doing… if I let it.

It can be the most important step I never take. Just STOP.

Look at what’s looking. Pay attention to attention.

99% of humans can overcome this simple seeing. I can do it. Humans do it all the time. Everyone wants it big and splashy and made so the incessant thinking can’t overcome it. But that isn’t true and people do it all the time anyway. I may think that just because I got a big, lazy peek at things I can stay awake and lazy at the same time. I can’t. If I sit back it will get cloudier and cloudier. That’s fine, too, but not very skillful.

I don’t ever go to sleep, but I can delude myself and appear to go to sleep. It’s what I do—almost every time.

I am always awake, but I am not always consciously awake. Rarely. And because I’ve been unconsciously awake for thousands of years in this package (meaning the DNA and softer conditioning associated with this body), I’ll fall right back into unconsciousness if I don’t consistently and actively nourish it with conscious light.

I have to be willing to shine truth, even when I don’t feel like “myself,” even when I don’t want to, on things I’d rather leave in the dark. I must hold nothing back. Willingness is my bridge into being the shining on an ongoing basis. I must give myself to the light fully, or not at all.

I don’t have to figure any of this out. If I try I’ll end up back on the hamster wheel.

Let the mind live in uncertainty. Let the body do what it does.

I do what I do: just watch, just be alert. I am not the watcher. I am the watching. I am the light behind alertness itself.

But when I’m watching as conscious awareness instead of unconscious awareness, what I see will change. When I look at human life there are hopeless amounts of blind patterns, compulsive energy patterns that are just running themselves, with no end in sight. They may have worked once, but not now. And yet they still run… and run and run and run… There’s a long trail of unskillful living, a long trail of suffering. If I’m willing to really look at these patterns, they will start to change.

Each specific pattern has to be shined on by the light of my conscious awareness in order for it to be remedied; for there to be clearing. Awareness colonizes the body one bit, one seeing, one unconscious pattern at a time.

Don’t try to fix this unit.

I can’t anyway. This body is operating on its own. I am not its minder or controller. It does what it does till it does something else. Let it—it will do so anyway. It won’t do something else until it sees that what it’s already doing isn’t helpful, skillful, isn’t beneficial—to the unit and the world. But once it does see it, truly and thoroughly sees it, then the penetrated pattern will thin, recede, drop away of its own accord. I don’t have to do anything. It just happens. Clarity arises. It may happen quickly or slowly, but once an unskillful pattern has been fully penetrated, its days are numbered.

This process of bringing light to all my dark corners is called embodiment. Slowly, sometimes excruciatingly slowly, I will begin to “live up to my seeing.” No rush. When I’m done with this body, there’s 7 billion more!… And that’s just on this planet!

My willingness to be consciously awake to this present arising is critical. Will I stand as awareness and see things as they are, or stand as a hypothetical center of consciousness, and wish for what isn’t? In every moment I ally myself with either experience or thinking. I have a history of voting for thinking. It’ll take some work to shift this default position. It’ll take a lot of willingness.

I must be willing to extend the willingness all the way down. Even when I most surely revert to feeling like a human character again, I must be willing to take the character’s thinking into inquiry. I have to be willing to remain forever open to doubt, to embrace uncertainty. Sureness will be a thing of the past, but living in the mysterious unfolding of myself is so much more satisfying.

Ask again and again: “Is what I’m thinking really true, or is it a belief, opinion or position, what Fred calls a BOP?”

Again and again, as I touch truth through actual experience—as I discover truth through continuous inquiry—that touch will bring a longer, stronger, more profound experience of what I always already am—that which knows that I am.

Eventually inquiry will become more spontaneous. Life itself becomes constant inquiry. Delusion arises, it’s questioned, penetrated, and it drops. Pop, pop, pop. Like everything else, I don’t have to do a thing. It all just happens effortlessly. It happens for me.

We-who-are-also-me call this effortless living abiding. Abiding enlightenment because I am then living consciously in the awakeness that I know myself to be, and operating in the world as this awakeness.

Read this again. Repetition is the mother of clarity.

Thanks to Cindy Zuker for converting and submitting this. Clarity is shining.

All love,
Fred