Phacinating Phenomenon
Nisargadatta Maharaja
I saw this quote and loved it. It doesn't matter how you find it
interesting - it's just that it is more interesting than the alternative:
the emptiness. So when it comes to the body, and particularly, when it
comes to the mind, it doesn't matter if we hate it, or love it, or love to
hate it, or hate to love it, or, well, you catch the drift, it's downright
interesting. We'll look at every aspect of it. We will analyze it until
we're blue in the face. But let it go? Ignore it? Inquire what precedes it?
These are not our first choice.
I once heard an interview on the radio with Fred Rogers...you remember him,
Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. In this interview, he was pointing out how
powerful silence is, and how we have an aversion to it. He then proceeded
to stop talking for only about 10 seconds, but it was the longest 10
seconds I had ever heard (or not heard) on the radio. He had successfully
made his point. Similarly, we may put an emphasis on talking. Or, we might
put an emphasis on silence. In either case, we are focusing on the
phenomenon because it is interesting. It's loud, it's quiet, it's good,
it's bad. It's just 'stuff' happening. It's stuff that is changing. What is
it that never changes? What is it that is always Present and witnessing
that body, that noisy mind, or even that silent mind?
This is where that inquiry comes in. Question, not the mind, but where is
this mind? To whom or what is it arising? Like a vast empty space, the
body, the mind, the world are all arising within You! You are that Great
Presence, the Empty Awareness within which all of it arises. Notice that...
Become That... Rest as That!