After writing about Steven Harrison's book in my previous post, "Doing Nothing -- a book about ending the spiritual search," below are additional passages that appealed to me.
Which doesn't mean that I resonate with everything in Doing Nothing. Some parts are a bit overly New Age'y for me, and I came across a mention of divinity that seems at odds with Harrison's message. But on the whole, I enjoy his blunt assessment of the problem with spiritual searching.
Basically, it boils down to a simple assertion that is in line with both neuroscience and Zen: whenever we're seeking salvation, enlightenment, mystical experience, or whatever for ourself, this ends up strengthening our sense of self -- and that sense is what keeps us from feeling at ease in this messy, confusing, changeable world, our only true home.
To give an example from my life, and my sense of self, whenever I use the circuit training weight room at our athletic club, I get annoyed when someone is sitting at a machine I want to use for longer than I think they need to.
But my view of what the proper time is comes from the way I use the machines, which is pretty quickly, usually just 20 repetitions, aside from 48 repetitions on the abdominal machine. And certainly at times I will be using a machine that prevents someone else from using it.
So recently I've been silently saying, Hope you're having a good workout, when I find myself getting annoyed at a person who, in my irritated frame of mind, seems to be camping out on a machine I want to use. This relaxes me. I no longer feel like I'm in a battle with the other person. They're just doing what I'm doing, exercising in the circuit training weight room in their own way.
In these passages Harrison speaks of how we confer authority upon a guru or spiritual teacher because we wrongly believe that this will benefit ourself, a self-centered point of view.
This teacher is our projection, the reflection of our fear, anxiety, and laziness. We project a father figure who is certain, authoritative, and disciplined. We project a mother figure who is nurturing, forgiving, and uncritical.
...This guru game is like the enlightenment game, we play it because we do not want to face our emptiness.
We have misunderstood our confusion when we think there is an answer to it. The confusion is not a result of questions that are too hard, but rather a questioner who is disintegrating. Confusion is the introduction to true intelligence. This is an intelligence without a center and without the dominance of thought.
If we sacrifice that intelligence in the name of the guru, if we put aside our spiritual responsibility for the authority of another, we have entered the realm of lost souls. Beware all those who enter here. The souls are lost. The guru is lost.
Power is corruption. There is abundant evidence in the sex and money scandals of a multitude of gurus that this is the case. How many insightful and charismatic teachers have become mired in intrigue and deception as their followers rationalize their leader's behavior?
The movement to increasing stupidity is the very nature of this structure, because the first step, the abdication of responsibility, is a misstep.
Harrison also warns against the lure of seeking experiences through meditation. This is another trap, often linked to the guru trap, since sometimes a guru is a person's meditation teacher.
It should not be surprising then that meditation becomes the hunt for experiences. The mind that is dissatisfied with its life is dissatisfied with itself and looks for this other.
There is a state of bliss, a state of peace, a state of love that it hunts for, a state that will be different, better, more complete than the mind which is hunting.
And yet, the field in which the mind hunts for this other, is the mind itself.
Finding nothing but itself, the mind, the meditator, looks for significance in what it finds. It finds experiences, states, gods and demons. From this it creates descriptions, explanations, and instructions. From this are created philosophy and religion.
...The mind has folded into itself. It has discovered a self-created truth and yet is still contained within itself.
If we are told to sit, close our eyes and look for the white light, we will create that white light. Or Buddha. Or Shiva. Or Jesus.
This is interesting in its own way. We can be educated or conditioned to experience particular phenomena in our meditation.
It can appear to be a joyful experience to find our god in meditation. But where did our god come from? Is this not a projection of the same mind that is in profound conflict? Isn't our god, the serene and compassionate one, an expression of this conflict? By creating this being of light, do we not imply that we exist in the shadows, that we are not that? Are we not still in conflict?
...The question is often asked, "How do we go beyond our minds?" The question presumes that we will still be there observing it all when "beyond" is reached. Beyond the mind means beyond the questioner, so who will be there to observe?
...We do not live lives of originality and discovery, but rather lives echoing the perspectives we have inherited.
The most fundamental conditioning is that of "I am," the basic sense of self-centeredness. This is the sense that there is a thinker who thinks thoughts and who somehow lives in our bodies. This is the illusion that we have location.
...Any approach to ourselves is from ourselves and is consequently part of the conditioning. It is a hopeless dilemma, and there is nothing we can do about it.
So, can we do nothing? A simple thing: nothing. There is a fundamental quiet in nothing.
...Doing nothing outlines the doer in an unmistakable way. If we wish to approach our mind, the most direct way is to do nothing. If we want to go beyond our mind, do nothing.
Perhaps what becomes most clear when we do nothing is that thought keeps on going, as though we were doing something. There is great humor in this. There is no on/off switch to thought. We are sure that we are the thinker of these thoughts, but they seem to have a mind of their own.
But if these thoughts do have a mind of their own, then who is the thinker? And more important, where is this thinker, this "me"?
The most fascinating thing is that we cannot find the thinker anywhere. Thoughts are coming and going, feelings, images, plans, dreams, fears and even commentaries on these thoughts are occurring. But, we cannot find the thinker in the nothingness anywhere. Just thought.
...Our entire reality is built upon a premise of a "me" located in our body. Perhaps it is time to look again.
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