Is there a word for absolute and rapturous freedom?
Imagine:
No debt, no obligations
Nothing pinning you down
No promises to fulfil and no deadlines pending
No todo list haunting your sleep
And no ego, not even a ‘you’ to be burdened
Is there a word for such unconstrained freedom?
Nirvana, or in Pali, निब्बान (nibbāna), literally means “blowing out” — referring to the blowing out of delusion.
What follows are notes on this most peculiar topic:
We experience illusion, but it is not nirvana that is the illusion; it is your ‘self’, your ‘soul’ that is the illusion. Whether you seek enlightenment or not, nirvana is always upon you — it is the only thing real in an otherwise delusional metaphor that we mistake for the real world. Your perceptions are in your mind; and they include every color, every sound, every object that you have either touched or imagined, every possession, every concept of self, God, and soul; these are abstractions in your mind to represent the world you exist within.
Consider for a moment why the blue sky is blue. Radiant sunlight refracts into a gaseous atmosphere and passes through your eyes triggering your brain to construct a visual representation experienced as a blue sky. A beautiful metaphor placing you at the center of a magnificent world domed in blue.
Consider the last well-made chair that you sat upon. You saw a chair and knew it was a chair as you sat upon it, but did you perceive the true nature of this thing you call a chair? The wooden legs, once growing from the ground as an oxygen producing tree, the carefully carved pieces interlocking with precision imagined by this chairs designer; all these things in that simple chair.
We see and experience a filtered and abstract metaphor that places our mind at the center of the universe, we call this set of perceptions a soul and imagine attributes that fill out an identity that we call an ego. It is tremendously useful and yet entirely imagined; a wonderful process of the creation of ego. It does not exist in anything except for its own perceptual delusion; all that does exist cannot be simultaneously in your brain, nirvana remains the only concept that once fully understood is the only thing real in an otherwise illusionary world.
And whether you are aware of it or not — that is, whether or not your mind has created a perceptual abstraction that allows your conscious ego to be aware of nirvana, and thus aware of its own illusionary nature, that the illusion of self knows it is an illusion — nirvana is already upon your being. The cycle of dukkha and samsara is itself an illusion, you are not going in a circle, there is no you to circulate.
Each moment dies and produces the next moment, and with that truth, everything that is “you” is no more significant than a blade of grass turning to face the sun. This is dependent arising, and in this awareness where the self is accurately perceived as an illusion, this is awareness of anatta, of not-self. And in this experience of anatta, this is awareness of nirvana.
There is no nirvana to be achieved, only an awareness of the nirvana that already exists.
Headphones on, a sweet voice sings melodically in your ears, an air-conditioned chill welcomes your entrance.
Students scurry in their studies, travelers queue for vacant computers, halls of knowledge surround and overwhelm– you stand amidst the pinnacles of all human thought, ingenuity, and creativity.
If I had a church; a place of transcendence where your soul is moved, a place where your perceptions are lifted above mundane daily toils, beyond those frantic markets despised by Zarathustra, a place where the surrender of ego happens at the mere experience of its interior; it is here, sitting silently in a library.
If you feel certain about something, then you have discovered the limits to that thing– and in life, more often than not, it means you have created an illusion of limits around yourself– limits that blind you to the purpose of life
I meet many people who want to travel. People who express a profound desire to travel, yet remain in one place; trapped by a myriad of excuses– I wish I could do that.
Almost every traveler will respond– you can!
For every excuse I have heard– children, money, job, school, visas– I have met travelers who overcame your excuse. I have met entire families traveling through the roughest parts of southeast Asia; I have met students traveling happily on laughably low budgets; and of course we all share absurd stories about immigration and visas.
There are travelers from all walks of life and aptitudes– from the timid to the brave, young to old, smart to stupid– all of them with a different reason to be traveling and yet unequivocally understood by other travelers.
There is nothing exceptional to traveling– so many people from so many backgrounds are doing it. You are an exceptional person, but not because you are traveling. That pretense is something you encounter with people who are *about* to travel; it feels to them like an extraordinary event, so they start blogs and tweet everytime they take a crap abroad. Good for them, fortunately for everyone else, that feeling wears off quickly.
Don’t be fooled into thinking traveling the world is extraordinary, that sets an artificial barrier for yourself to experience your own travels– which, ironically, will unlock the extraordinary in yourself.
Traveling is more a lifestyle choice than an extraordinary event– releasing yourself from the delusion that you need to stay in one place. You don’t, you can go anywhere you have the will and the want.
Once you embark on a travel lifestyle you’ll start to simplify. You’ve heard it from many travelers, you’ve heard it from Thoreau– simplify. This is an amazing and addictive side-effect to traveling. What do you really need? — you’ll find out — and you’ll feel freer and happier with every burden you release.
Embrace a travel lifestyle and you may get to that enlightened state where you realize you don’t need anything. Your luggage shrinks and shrinks until you’re not carrying a thing. You are experiencing life. Life is simple, and traveling in life will teach you this simplicity.
If extraordinary things happen while traveling, it is due to this: the simplicity achieved and the burdens released have freed your time and lifted your soul– the bliss of being is in your every breath. There are no obligations and no artificial responsibilities and no delusional burdens, just existence at its most pure and rapturous state.
Hurtling through space around an explosion
It pulls us along– And it too, this life giving fire
Hurtling through space, pulled by this fiery cluster of stars
This galaxy– hurtling through space
It is beyond any of our Gods creations
We have looked past our delusions
and seen past the boundaries of our imagination
We are life itself– life aware
Creators of Godly worlds that held us servile
No more significant than a blade of grass turning to face the sun
And yet profoundly more significant than the Godly worlds of our creation
The fire of life is within us, in our every breath the dependent life arises
Identifying us with this life eternal
We are captive to life as much as our Gods are captive to their Godhood
To ask ‘is this it?’– surely they have not seen– they have not experienced the bliss of being that truly is ‘it’
We move forward in time while looking only backwards.
We are blind to the future– we stare at the past, aware only of what has already happened. Unable to change the past, we shape the future– the very future we cannot see.
A strange predicament; predicting and shaping the future from past events– a fools errand in any other context.
Such a stunt requires spirit. A guiding principle, a concept– arguably one of our creation– moving us forward a little less blind. It’s difficult to know where we’re going when we see only what has already happened.
There is, it seems, a pre-conscious awareness– right at the moment of sensory contact where the future becomes the past. Our conscious mind stares openly at the near past, understanding it through lenses of perceptions, useful metaphors for facing a world we are otherwise blind to experience.
Before conscious awareness and after sensory contact, there is a moment where the perceptions are applied and the metaphors created. You look up to see the sky, before the metaphors of ‘blue’ and ‘brilliant’ are applied, there is an awareness; a childlike awe and it is here that is best described as a spiritual awareness– and from this spiritual awareness the metaphors of consciousness are created and your actions follow such that your conscious mind may think "what a brilliant blue sky".
It is here that we are closest to experiencing life as it truly exists, and it is here that we find the spiritual awareness that guides us forward. As our mind creates perceptions of blue and brilliant, something guides it– something decides ‘brilliant’ before the image is even constructed. Attempting to explain this we create more metaphors, Gods and all kinds of spiritual abstractions.
Because this moment occurs before the usual metaphors of conscious awareness– gods, religions, and all created forms fail to adequately describe it– yet these are often the most useful way to bridge your conscious awareness to this preconscious spiritual awareness.
Create the most useful metaphors to bridge your conscious awareness to spiritual awareness.
This could be ancient scripture, a personal god or gods, scientific models of human cognition, currents of mystic energy– all are metaphors, don’t be lost in the metaphors. Find the song in your own heart that awakens you to this bliss, to the rapture of existence that is spiritual awareness– and see the infinite in the world around you.
On the road you meet lots of people, other travelers–
Some wandering, some drifting, others on destination, rarely on itinerary
Some are out to save the world– only to learn that the world is in no need of saving
Find yourself, lose yourself, eventually you realize those are the same things
Getting away from the ‘real world’ only to discover the real world
And a life free from regrets
The fires of your minds-eye rage forward,
fueled by streams of
the Sights most moving, of
the Sounds calming, of
the Tastes and wafting Scents delicious, and of
the Touches from lovers longing
All die as quickly and beautifully as they become
Look within, look without
Beyond these shores of strained eyes
The doors of perception swing to and fro
as swiftly as the breath that wisps from nose to lips
Ten days of silent meditation at Wat Suan Mokkh in southern Thailand; at the mercy of the mosquitoes and alone in your thoughts.
The monks give daily Damma talks on Anapanasati (mindfulness of breathing). They speak of dukkha (suffering), and the cessation of dukkha.
Most of the time you sit silently and meditate. Actually, everything is silent, there is no talking.
You sleep on a concrete slab with a straw mat and a wooden pillow. The monastery bell rings at 4am, you arise and walk to the meditation hall for sitting meditation.
Yoga, and then more meditation before 8am for a breakfast of rice soup.
And then chores, I swept one of the meditation halls. Afterwards the bell rings and back to sitting meditation, followed by walking meditation. Eventually lunch, the last meal of the day.
In the afternoon one of the monks gives a Damma talk. Afterwards walking meditation, and then sitting meditation. And then you either continue sitting or join in on chanting (in Pali)– chanting is a nice way to exercise your vocal chords and break up the silence.
Late afternoon there is tea and free time to sit in the hot springs. As the sun sets the bell rings and you walk to the meditation hall for (you guessed it) sitting meditation. Then group walking meditation, walking barefoot in the dark, mindfully so as not to step on any centipedes, scorpions or snakes. A candle-lit path around a pond, stars above.
In the silence the pace slows, day by day people are walking slower and slower, you move at the pace of life and the nature to which you are apart.
Your mind may race in the silence, all notions of self and ego fight to maintain their place in your mind, the monks tell you these are illusions– and anapanasati (mindfulness of breathing) brings these illusions to your awareness.
Everyone seems to get something different from this experience. Confronting your self in the silence, you may or may not like what you find.
Dig deep enough and you find the illusion of self, that “I” and “my” are delusions.
There are many sides to who you think you are, many even conflict with each other, which one is the real you?
Question your possessions, relationships, memories, personality, body, and even the mind itself — all of these things change (dramatically) during the course of a single human life; which one is the real you? Or are you the very process that witnesses the continuous change of life? If you peel off the layers one-by-one there’s little left.
I thought, perhaps there’s a self in each moment, dying and reborn continuously as we experience life. Question even this, and peel this off as yet another delusional layer of ego– eventually there is no more ego (“I” or “my”) to question.
Ego-less existence feels like a dream when you know you are dreaming. Content, beautiful, blissful freedom.
Free from craving
Free from suffering
Free to crave
Free to suffer.
