Just do not give birth to a single thought: let go and become crystal clear.
As soon as any notions of right and wrong and self and others and gain and loss are present, do not follow them off.
Then you will be personally studying with your own true enlightened teacher.
Yuanwu (1063-1135)
Taken from ‘Zen Letters: The Teachings of Yuanwu’ p. 50
“The differences are the result of the sense of doership.
The fruits will be destroyed if the root is destroyed.
The differences will vanish and the essential reality will reveal itself.
Inquire within. The sense of doership will vanish.
Vichara (inquiry) is the method.”
Taken from Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, talk no. 429
Tom’s comments:
The root of suffering is the sense of doership, the sense that there is a doer-entity, the sense that you are a doer. The root is the notion ‘I am a doer’, the fruit is suffering and duality.
Let go of this sense of doership, either by simply relaxing and letting go, or, as suggested above, look and find out what the doer is. Look at your own direct experience: can you see the doer? Can you feel the doer? What does the doer look and feel like exactly? Where does the doer begin and end? How big is the doer? Where is the doer located?
When you look, as you keep on noticing, you may start to realise/see that there is no actual experience of a doer at all. All there are are sensations, feelings and thoughts. Specifically there may be the thought ‘I am the doer’ or ‘this is the doer’, but no actual doer is seen/experienced apart from the thought. The doer is seen to be an imagined entity. The doer (ie. ego) is revealed to be a fiction.
Ramana uses the word ‘reality’ above. What is reality? It’s just what’s left over when the sense of doership is seen through. It’s just what’s left over when false illusions are seen for what they are: false.
–
Words are empty,
Talk is cheap.
Consciousness. Awareness. God. Brahman.
-who gives a fuck?
While you chase Supreme Unexcelled Enlightenment,
Life is already passing you by.
Where is it?
Why, it is here, of course,
And you are right in the thick of it*.
*’you’ = ‘the thick of it’
The following is an excerpt from the book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki:
If you want to obtain perfect calmness in your zazen, you should not be bothered by the various images you find in your mind. Let them come, and let them go. Then they will be under control. But this policy is not so easy. It sounds easy, but it requires some special effort. How to make this kind of effort is the secret of practice.
Suppose you are sitting under some extraordinary circumstances. If you try to calm your mind you will be unable to sit, and if you try not to be disturbed, your effort will not be the right effort. The only effort that will help you is to count your breathing, or to concentrate on your inhaling and exhaling. We say concentration, but to concentrate your mind on something is not the true purpose of Zen. The true purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. This is to put everything under control in its widest sense.
The true purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes.
Zen practice is to open up our small mind. So concentrating is just an aid to help you realise ‘big mind’, or the mind that is everything.
If you want to discover the true meaning of Zen in your everyday life, you have to understand the meaning of keeping your mind on your breathing and your body in the right posture in zazen.
You should follow the rules of practice and your study should become more subtle and careful. Only in this way can you experience the vital freedom of Zen.
Who is it that cares? What is it that cares? Why do you want it?
Notice that this very teaching is pointing out that the entity that wants these things is itself a fiction. It is the false ego that cares. And the false ego does not exist. (Note that I use the word ‘ego’ as a synonym for ‘the doer’)
How do you imagine it will benefit you? Any benefit you imagine enlightenment will give you is only temporary at best. What comes can also go. Freedom means that you are free from the need for any improvements to what is.
Happiness can come, and it will also eventually go. Happiness and all states of mind are necessarily transient. Enlightenment is already present, and is not dependent on happiness or on your state of mind. Enlightenment doesn’t need to be happy.
The problem here is that all knowledge is uncertain and can be doubted. Yes, all knowledge. If you think that you are Pure Consciousness, if you think it’s all about no-mind or no-ego, if you think it’s all about Jesus or Krishna, all of these are within the field of knowledge.
You may have cleverly deduced and convinced yourself that you are immortal using some kind of conceptual construct loosely based on your experience, but the truth is that you don’t actually know.
How can you know what happens when you die? No matter how you justify it, no matter how many psychic intuitions or spiritual experiences you have, the truth is that you don’t know for sure what happens after death. This question may perhaps be answered by science in the future, but we are not there yet.
Think of a time when you were utterly convinced something was true, but now you look back and realise how wrong you were. Knowledge also comes and goes. Perspectives change as we grow and mature and experience different things.
Enlightenment is beyond knowledge. Enlightenment does not depend on knowledge or the mind. Unlike knowledge and states of mind, Enlightenment cannot be attained – it is already here.
If enlightenment is not about attaining a particular state of mind or gaining some kind of knowledge, then what’s left? What’s left is simply what’s happening. That’s all. Enlightenment/freedom/nirvana is not about attaining anything at all. All we ‘know’ is whatever is happening is whatever is happening. Or, to be more accurate, whatever we perceive (to be happening) is what we perceive.
We can go a little further too: we can also point out mistakes in our thinking. If we think Father Christmas is real, we can notice and point out there is no conclusive evidence to support that, despite appearances to the contrary (eg. presents appearing beneath the tree on Christmas Day). Any happiness or pleasure we derive from believing in Father Christmas is similarly based on our wrong notions/illusion.
Similarly, if someone takes themselves to be a doer, an entity that is free to choose and take credit and blame for its actions, then we can point out that there is no evidence to support this position, despite appearance to the contrary. All suffering that results from belief in doership is similarly based on illusion.
So, we can ‘know’ (ie. perceive) whatever’s happening right now, and we can know what we don’t know.
Basically, let’s be honest and humble and not pretend we know things that we don’t. Let’s not pretend we are this or that, let’s not strive towards spiritual ideals which are just mental projections – it’s all fear based, ego-based.
Instead of striving towards projected notions of Enlightenment, why not look at where we are. Why not stay with what is?
The movement away from what is is based on aversion and fear. Can you see that? This movement away is the fear. This movement away is the suffering. It is all based on the notion ‘I am the doer’ or ‘I am the ego’.
When we stop striving, we become available to see things as they are, we become free to understand. When we see there is no ego/doer, there is no striving/desire. Even if there is desire, there is no identification with it, so there is no suffering.
When we see that there is nothing to attain, we naturally relax. It happens by itself. As we relax, positivity and well-being flow into our system. We are free to be ourselves, which means we are free to let whatever happens happen – we have no choice in this anyway as there is no doer!
Emotions come and go: they are free to be felt and experienced.
The body-mind starts to balance itself, regulate itself and develop its natural sensitivity and intelligence.
Insights and understanding pours through, illusion falls away as it is seen through. Love starts to blossom.
Or maybe it doesn’t. It’s for you to find out for yourself, in freedom, if what I am saying is true.
Relax, notice and discover.
What are we left with? Just what’s happening. So simple, and beyond words. Just life, living, simply, spontaneously. The fact that it or anything is here at all is the ‘miracle’.
‘I am free!
I am free!’
I cried.
‘Freedom is here,
Freedom is here’
the Voice echoed back.
The following are verses from Guru Vachaka Kovai, one of the most authoritative texts of Ramana Maharshi’s teachings. The text was written by his disciple Muruganar and thereafter thoroughly checked and amended by Ramana. Here are some verses on the root cause of suffering, our notion of being a doer, with some commentary from Sri Sadhu Om, another devotee of Ramana:
466 The pure Bliss of peace will shine within only for those who have lost the sense of doership. For, this foolish sense of doership alone is the poisonous seed that brings forth all evil fruits.
467 Instead of going on, driven by the restless thoughts, performing actions such as ‘I should do this, I should give up that’ as if they were worthy to be done, acting according to how the Grace of God, the Lord of our soul, leads us, is the right form of truly worshipping Him
476 Whether or not one is performing actions, if the delusion of individuality – the ego, ‘I am the doer of actions’ – is completely annihilated, that is the attainment of actionlessness.
Sri Sadhu Om’s Comments: People generally think that the attainment of actionlessness is a state in which one should remain still, giving up all activities. But this is wrong. Sri Bhagavan Ramana proclaims that the loss of doership alone is the right kind of actionlessness, and this alone is nishkamya karma – action done without any desire for result.
470 The Lord who has fed you today will ever do so well. Therefore, live carefree, placing all your burden at His feet and having no thought of tomorrow or the future.
471 Know well that even performing tapas (spiritual practice) and yoga with the intention ‘I should become an instrument in the hands of the Lord Siva’ is a blemish to complete self-surrender, which is the highest form of being in His service.
Sri Sadhu Om’s Comments: Since even the thought ‘I am an instrument in the Lord’s hand’ is a means by which the ego retains its individuality, it is directly opposed to the spirit of complete self-surrender, the ‘I’-lessness. Are there not many good-natured people who engage themselves in prayers, worship, yoga and such virtuous acts with the aim of achieving power form God and doing good to the world as one divinely commissioned? It is exposed here that even such endeavours are egotistical and hence contrary to self-surrender.
Life lives itself,
all-encompassing,
all-consuming:
-where is the room for you?
It’s so easy to convince the ego there’s something more it has to do in order to be ‘awakened’ or ‘realised’. There is always a greater state of mind to be attained, a greater realisation to be had, a greater level of emotional balance to be developed, more psychic/yogic/magical powers that you still don’t have. There is always the spiritual carrot dangling in front of you reminding you that ‘you don’t got it yet’. And the ego is always looking to get that carrot. The ego doesn’t want to just let that carrot dangle there.
But this is the essential problem, for there is no ego. By ego I mean doer, or the idea that you are some kind of autonomous or semi-autonomous entity that can chose what to think and do. I’ll say it again: there is no ego, there is no doer.
All practices, all teachings are for the ego. Can you see that? It is the ego that is listening to the spiritual teaching, it is the ego that is trying to get somewhere, it is the ego that wants to be enlightened/awakened/self-realised/free of suffering.
All practices, all teachings are for the ego. Can you see that?
But there is no ego/doer. As it is the ego that is looking, seeking and trying to get this, how can there be a teaching
‘All you have to do is be aware’
Really? Aren’t you already aware?
‘But you need to be more aware’
Why? Because you think you are are not good enough where you currently are? Isn’t this just more trying to get somewhere/something else?
‘You must realise that you are Pure consciousness. You are eternal and indestructable’.
Really? How on earth do you know that? And what of it? All realisation that come can also go. Plus it sounds a bit egotistical and conceptual to me, identifying as awareness…
‘All you have to do is let go’
Really? Who is letting go? The ego? There is no ego! And what are we letting go of? This is just more ego-talk.
‘In the highest realisation you will feel complete bliss, know everything, be able to answer all questions perfectly, exude a golden (or is it white?) aura and be generally extremely cool to hang around’
All realisations, states of experience and altered perceptions come and go, as do all powers and attainments. That which arises can also fall, that which appears can also disappear.
‘I’ve finally figured this all out!’
Well done Mr Ego, you got it!
‘Just devote yourself completely to <insert God of choice/Guru/Consciousness here>’
OK Ms Ego, go ahead and do that. Oh, and by the way, you’re just a fictitious imagined entity so how can you do anything?
Practices don’t work, but they are often essential (see here for more about how spiritual practices can work, even though they don’t work). Spiritual practices are dished out by teachers who are still stuck in (imagined) duality or by genuine teachers who realise that the seeker is just too caught up in their illusion to see through it and so the next best thing is to encourage the seeker to aim for peace and happiness. All teachings are for the doer, they are all within the confines of the illusion of doership.
You see, just like Father Christmas, the doer is an illusion, an idea, a belief, a false notion. If you believe in it, then there are consequences, but there’s actually no evidence for the doer. The belief exists, the doer doesn’t. The illusion exists, but the doer doesn’t.
If that’s where you are, caught up in egoic thought processes, then fine. You will feel like you have to do something, so you may as well do a spiritual practice. Just remember that the teachings are not true, just realise that all spiritual practices are for the ego, and then you can go ahead and do them. They will, if they are any good, have a purifying effect: hopefully they will make you feel happier and more at peace, reduce your attachment to thoughts, reduce the hold of the ego, and then perhaps, as you are not as caught up in yourself and your belief in doership, this ‘no-doer’ will be ‘seen’, spontaneously and naturally.
Initially you can start to look for evidence for the ego/doer. What this really means is that the ego is looking for evidence that it doesn’t exist, which of course is an impossible task. But then eventually , somehow,you have to see that the whole construct is corrupt, wrong, illusory: all there is is spontaneous movement. This is not just an idea, but just the way things are. And it is already always being ‘seen’ or noticed. How this is seen cannot be put into words, but the seeker that takes themselves to be the doer has no choice but to try anyway (or not try).
If this is not working for you, then see my article on practices to attain enlightenment here.
But isn’t this itself a realisation? Kind of. It is realising there is nothing needed to be realised. It is the realisation that there is no realisation required. It is the dropping in the belief of spiritual inadequacy. Nothing is needed for total complete supreme enlightenment to be! Isn’t this what non-duality means?
Behold the voice within that chases the carrot and always thinks there is more to do: ‘This is not the highest teaching…this doesn’t sound right…you have to meditate…you have to sing and chant…this is too simple…you have to do this or that…’.
Notice how the genuine spiritual teaching simply says ‘This is it! Just this, as you are, already!’
Notice how the mind listens to the teaching but then says ‘OK, I hear you, but this is most certainly not it!’ or ‘This can’t be it!’ or ‘Can this be it? But I don’t want this! Isn’t there more? That other teacher says there is more…‘
Most teachings convince you that there’s something wrong with you as you already are, or that you are not complete already. Even if they say you are already perfect and complete as you are, they then go on to tell you what to do (to improve yourself or your understanding or experience in some way).This, my friend, is called duality. Non-duality points to the fallacy of this narrative. Get it? Have you got it? 🙂
With love, blessings and a deep gratitude to you all
Tom
❤ ❤ ❤
Tom Das 