Accentuate the Negative…
March 4th, 2007 by Ernie
So much of our life is about striving, planning, goal setting and the like. Silly as it may sound, the process of waking up involves none of that. Nothing of achieving, trying, taking steps, hoping, pursuing, etc. is necessary, and actually can get in the way.
Rather, it’s more like UN-doing, releasing, surrender, unlearning, giving up, ending, or letting go (not that you should DO any of these). This is so because a wakeful state is simply all that’s left when “me†stops running the show. It is what’s going on when “me†is quiet. And “me†is what tries to attain, to get, to achieve. It grasps at, reaches for, tries hard, and hopes for results, all in our own name. This implies that even ‘trying’ to stop “me†is useless. So, is it hopeless?
Fortunately, an intense (warm and curious) attention to this “me†is all that’s necessary, as that “me†mechanism (and it is mechanistic) with its incessant activity is what’s in our way. The most difficult part of paying such attention to this is that we are so identified with “me†(duh). Really, we are just not used to paying much attention to ourselves without any motive – motives to improve, to gain, or to pursue happiness or avoid pain. Can we watch the movement of ourselves inwardly just to see what’s going on? *(see Introduction post for a full description of “me†as the ‘old default’)
And what is this incessant chattering, grasping “me†made of? Thinking. Particularly thinking about ME (geeze, there’s an awful lot of that!). So can we simply pay attention to thinking? Not necessarily to the content of thinking, but to the process itself as it arises. What we think about is interesting to us, but there is something far more interesting we can learn just in watching, with no motive but to understand. Then it’s possible to catch sight of how thinking arises, how it is endlessly seeking, and how it requires time, past and future, in order to exist at all. I am only pointing at thinking that is not the ordinary and necessary thinking needed to run our daily lives and take care of business – this causes no distress.
If you are very lucky, you might even notice that in such a state of watchfulness, you are actually outside of time, just a warm curious being, attending to what’s there to see within yourself, thus learning and discovering. That’s who you truly are.
To watch with such a quality of warm curiosity is highly intelligent, and leads to intelligent responses, like ending “me†as the operating system of your life. Whoa!
Now that accentuates the negative…
I loved the conversation you and I had recently on this idea of negative-space. That waking up is really about removing, it is never about adding! (As in waking up in the morning, and removing the covers-sorry I just couldn’t resist!) I got this image of the sculptor, who in removing the extraneous parts that the “big hunk o’ rock” is identified with, allows a mysterious process to unfold…and he discovers he is not the sculptor and the “hunk o’ rock” is not just a “hunk o’ rock”. Something is happening, and he allows it to happen. That is what I am finding. And as you said: it is not a doing. It feels like an allowing. Allowing falling away. Allowing those structures that held us standing in a just-so posture to fall way…allowing ourselves to fall…and in the falling there is a shedding, a getting lighter, as we fall into what seems at times like an unknown, an abyss, a freefall…and just keep watching … draw no conclusions…do not pretend to know…just be very attentive…
I have noticed, that for me it has meant not showing up the way I used to in my life. Lately it has meant letting the tears flow for reasons unknown, for moments of beholding unspeakable beauty, for moments of witnessing the trance that doesn’t have to be, for moments of the heart breaking open to a greater capacity for love, for compassion.
Observing the terrain of this free fall has got my attention! I don’t want to be distracted. I imagine it is a similar quality of attention that was called of Michelangelo when he worked in the negative spaces! I find that I am called to engage in those activities that respect this state of presence…of breaking patterns with rote reactions to life’s stimulus…of letting go of all we can conceive of letting go (and then some!): with a curiosity for what beauty may be revealed therein…and noticing the gentle warm caress of the breeze in this surprisingly familiar territory we find ourselves in.
Always lovely to converse with you Ernie!…and whoever else is out there/here!
So much love, Maria
When the “default me” disappears, what is left? I like this conversation about “negative space” because “negative space” would be one way to say how I experience what is left behind. It is as if the person Jay no longer exists and what is left is a space, a space that allows things to move through it. So, that’s one thing–when the default me disappears, a space for something else opens up. I should say that the experience of becoming a space, or doorway for Allness to enter the room is totally glorious–like nothing else.
This week, I’ve had so much fun being an empty space, inviting a kind of magic to move through me (with my girlfriend, or at my job), that I sort of got attached to it (hey, look at what I can do–aren’t I something!). As soon as I became attached to being an empty space, I stopped being an empty space and became an ego based person again–a person striving to be an empty space. What a bummer. One moment I was sailing along through the wind on a parasail, the next, I was crashed against the side of a mountain, picking rocks out of my teeth, and trying to figure out how the hell to get aloft again.
Ernie’s description of how to get aloft, “surrender, release, undo, give up…” is accurate, but language is problematic. It’s kind of like teaching my daughter how to ride a bike. If I tell her to balance, it doesn’t do much good–until she, through trial, error, and happy accident simply finds herself balancing. After that, it’s easier for her to find that balance place again. My help for her isn’t really in my instructions; it’s mostly in the fact that I know how to ride a bike and I can, with complete conviction, continue to reassure her that she can do it if she keeps trying. I see her success before she can, and see her spills as part of the process. This, I think, is a big part of what Ernie has done and continues to do for me.
Sometimes I ride now, though wobbly. And when I crash, sooner or later I find that balance point again and wobble on.
Now I’m starting to understand what Ernie means when he says that anyone can live this way, not just saints and geniuses–but even insecure, self-conscious, self absorbed, (though well intentioned) assholes like that person Jay (though, as it turns out, Jay has to disappear for the trick to work). But when Jay disengages, it’s a great ride.