Right after I finished the book 'Only That' by Sailor Bob Adamson which focuses on non-dual presence, I started reading the book 'Dismantling the Fantasy' by Daryl Bailey, which focuses much on impermanence and no-self.
I started reading this conincidentally, or perhaps not (somehow such synchronistic occurences always occur for me), when Thusness told me to start focusing on 'impermanence' and 'arising and passing' nature of experiences.
Anyway, this is the first chapter, enjoy:
the cloud
Once upon a time, a group of friends lay on a hillside
watching a cloud. They had become fascinated with
its appearance while walking in the country. It was a
marvellous cloud, massive and surging, one moment
appearing to be a house and the next a bevy of balloons.
In turn there were forests and cities, animals and people,
comings and goings, no end of activity.
As it so happened, an old man, a stranger, was wandering
close by. When the group of friends saw him, they cried
out in their excitement, Old man, come join us! Come
watch this cloud!
After hurried introductions and the shifting of bodies, he
took his place within the group.
The afternoon passed pleasantly as the cloud continued
to surprise. There were soldiers at war and children at
play. There were creatures of the wild: birds, mammals,
and fish, as well as beasts of work and burden. There was
a mother and her child. There were the many scenes of
life: birth, death, sickness, youth and old age. There were
lovers and fighters, friends and enemies, the interaction
of groups, and single, poignant portraits.
Time wore on, the afternoon dwindled, and eventually
the old man stood to leave. He thanked his new friends
and made his goodbyes, but hesitated, looking at the
gathering.
May I ask you a question?
Of course, they replied, in their various ways.
Were you at all concerned for those we saw this
afternoon?
Who? they asked.
The figures we saw in the cloud: the soldiers, the
animals, the children.
The friends looked at each other, perplexed.
One answered, Old man, there were no people, no animals;
there was only the cloud.
The others nodded in agreement.
How do you know that?
How do we know what?
How do you know there was only the cloud?
It’s obvious, anyone can see it.
See what?
There is only the cloud; it’s still there.
What about the forms we saw?
There were no forms; there is only the cloud and it has no
particular form.
How do you know that?
Just look, and you can see it.
What do you see?
There are no forms there.
How do you know that?
Because they’re always changing. No form is ever really
there; whatever form you think you see is always altering,
rearranging in some way.
How do you know that?
Just look! That’s all you have to do.
There were no soldiers, no animals, no children?
No. It may have seemed like that, but there was only the
cloud.
There were no soldiers deciding to fight, no lovers
deciding to love?
How could those false appearances decide to do anything?
There is only the movement of the cloud.
So the cloud decides to move?
No. The cloud does not decide to move. It has no form. It
simply moves. That’s its nature.
How do you know that?
Have you ever seen a cloud that stopped changing? Every
aspect of it is shifting in some way. It doesn’t decide to do it;
it’s on automatic. The movement simply happens.
There were no people?
There was no birth and death?
Birth and death of what? There is only the cloud. It seems
like many forms coming and going, but it’s always only the
unformed cloud.
And no one is deciding to do anything?
No. The forms that appear to be there are not really there,
because each one is altering in some way and eventually
disappears. There is simply action or motion. The forms
are not the reality; they are false appearances. There is only
movement, a streaming that has no particular form.
But the lovers who moved closer together …?
There were no lovers, no soldiers, no animals. There is only
the cloud.
The old man pondered this slowly.
There were no forms there?
No decisions to act?
No birth and death?
That’s right! said the friends, thinking they had finally
gotten through to him.
But how do you know that for certain?
Just watch! The forms that you see are changing all the time.
They never stop. No particular form is ever really there. If
you had to describe a cloud, you wouldn’t say it looked like a
horse or a soldier. That wouldn’t give you a true sense of the
cloud. A cloud is constantly changing.
The appearance of form is not the reality. The altering is.
That’s the basic fact. There is no coming or going, no birth
or death, no decisions being made, no matter how much it
seems like that. There is only motion. Anyone can see that
if they watch it long enough.
The old man considered this carefully.
You’re absolutely certain?
Yes! We’re absolutely certain.
And you can tell all of this from seeing this constant
change, this motion, this dynamic?
Yes.
The old man contemplated this.
May I ask another question?
The friends remained silent, waiting.
Are you actually people?
What are you talking about? Of course we’re people.
But you’re changing.
What?
Everything you are – your bodies, thoughts, emotions,
interests, urges, desires, capacities, decisions, focuses,
ideas, activities – in fact, more than just you, all
things that you know of.
What about them?
They’re constantly changing.
Yes, sighed the members of the group, They’re changing.
Do you change them?
No, old man, they simply ...
The friends stood staring at him, their minds racing,
exploding to find some other response.
He gazed back at them.
They looked.
He looked.
For what seemed to be a very, very, long time.
Then he smiled, turned, and wandered away.
From another page:
The movement that you are is expressing itself right now: the automatic movement of needs, interests, urges, perceptions, thoughts, understandings, abilities, and actions. You’re already it. You're not doing it. There is no you who can avoid it or get it wrong. There is only a mysterious river expressing itself.
In any particular moment, there may be numerous urges pulling in many directions, but there will be one particular priority that pushes itself forward, overpowering the others.
Whether it's sitting still, going to the toilet, pursuing a career, chasing a relationship, being confused, or waking from delusion doesn't really matter. All of it is an incomprehensible movement.
We can't say anyone does this dynamic, or directs this dynamic, because all that's ever experienced is this dynamic.
We have absolutely no possible way of knowing what's going on here, but it happens anyway. What arises with this realization is wonder - at the endless mystery of it, the miraculous gifting of it. All of life is a gift.
I'm not saying that with this realization life is always pleasant. It still carries tremendous pains and difficulties. If the focus does fall away from the stories of form and realizes the indefinable river, there may be a period of fear, sadness, and depression, as belief in the stories fades away.
There may be a sense of losing many valuable things, like self-importance, personal relationship, and control. You might feel there's no point in living. But you will not lose anything valuable. All that's lost is illusion and its related agonies.
As the process continues, the sense of loss is replaced by a sense of wonder and amazement.
Existence is a mysterious gifting. There will be a waiting in wonderment as everything, including the process that you are, simply displays itself. All of life displaying itself with no effort on anyone's part.
External circumstances, and all the internal responses to circumstance, simply happen. it's one mysterious movement.
For the people around you, it will appear as though you lead an ordinary life, more easy-going perhaps, but still exhibiting many qualities that any human being exhibits. For you, however, there is no you, no others, no body, no mind, no world, no doing, no birth, no death, and so on, no sense of fragmentation or lack. There is no obsessive focus on these false ideas.
This is similar to taking your focus away from a movie. If you were in a theatre watching a movie with many other people, all of you would be caught in the thrill of the story, the various characters, the births and deaths, the joys and sorrows, the anxieties and fears, the highs and lows of emotion. You would be absorbed in a story, with all of the wild emotions it produced.
But if your focus falls away from the screen, all of that is gone. Instead, there is a dark room filled with people watching colour dancing on a wall. The movie hasn't ended, but you're no longer focused on that fantasy world. You're not caught in the fantasies and emotions that the others are feeling. There is the impression that the room is the reality, and, compared to the melodrama of the movie, the room is very peaceful.
The movie would continue without your efforts and, from time to time, it would attract your attention. The fantasy world would arise again. The moving colours once again become a world of people, adventure, crisis, and trauma until that focus falls away.
Even when caught in the movie, and experiencing the wild storm of emotion it generates, you don’t take it too seriously, because it's "just" a movie.
It's the same in realizing the unformed, pulsing, luminous, dance of existence. If the focus falls away from thought, and away from the false appearances of form, if it comes to the entire happening of the moment, there is simply an unformed, inexplicable movement.
The thoughts don't end; they continue to happen automatically, a small portion of a larger happening of sights, sounds, touches, tastes, and smells. The dance of light and dark, sound and silence, twinges, pulsations, waves of energy, moods, and so on. All of it, including thought, is a mysterious movement happening on its own.
The thoughts will continue to come and go without effort, and will often be the focus of attention. They will describe their fantasies of form, and may generate wild emotions, but there is the underlying acknowledgment that these stories of form can't possibly be true. They can't be applied to what is.
With complete realization of this, even when the attention gets attracted to the false stories and the wild emotions they generate, none of it is taken too seriously. It’s a fantasy.
If the stories of thought are believed to be true, they must generate conflict, because they only function in terms of form, and form doesn't exist. Thought tries to impose form where none exists, to impose understanding where none exists. This imposition is always frustrated, and that's conflict.
If, however, there is only movement, a movement that no one is doing and no one can possibly explain, there can't be any conflict.
It’s not more conflicting than lying on a riverbank watching the water flow by. Sometimes the river is wild and raging. Sometimes it's peaceful. In all cases it's a river being a river; it's not a problem.
Life isn't a problem to be understood or solved: it's a river flowing. if for some reason you believe you're separate from it, and that somehow you're doing it, there will be a huge amount of mental anguish.
People generally believe that everything is moved by the laws of nature. We don't believe that planets guide their own orbit or that a bird decides to have a career as a bird. We don't believe that storms decide to be storms or that bears decide to be bears.
We don't believe that a plant, or a rock, is planning how to be a plant or a rock. A plant isn't figuring out how to move as a plant. A rock isn't worrying about whether it's rock-ing correctly. We don't have the impression that it's feeling guilty for being the rock that it is. We believe that everything in existence is moved by the laws of nature. Everything is a movement of the cosmos.
Everything.
Except for us.
For some reason we think we move the cosmos. We think we move our lives. Doesn't that seem strange to you?