Take a Walk on the Dark Side

Put a little light on it

'Think positively. Be positive.' What’s that mean? What’s positive? What’s not? To start with, to think positive there has to be the concept of a negative. You can’t have a positive without its dark side, the negative. So what is negative? And are these absolute values where if you call it a positive or a negative just once will it always be so, in any circumstance? Then faced with this Either / Or situation, can you take a negative and turn it into a positive by thinking its opposite? 

To think positive there has to be an acceptance of a negative. Simply to 'think' positive is useless, in fact worse than useless, it’s self-deluding because, for the appearance of a short-term gain, it will only exacerbate the problem in the long run by giving the illusion of change when the nature of the problem has not been identified let alone addressed. Of course changing a negative quality by the cultivation of a positive quality can be done, but only if the nature of the negative has been identified in some way and then properly addressed. 

This may not be so easy as it sounds. To begin with there can be a real reluctance for us to be willing to go there, to actively turn and look into what we would rather not know about too deeply. And even if willing, when facing up to it, it may not go the way we want or expect. So wouldn’t it be much easier to let these things hide out, slide by, lurk at one remove, so we can continue to convince ourselves of what we’d prefer to believe? 

Yet at the same time there we are still searching for this elusive positive, which, when it comes down to it, will also continue to hold its distance in exactly the same proportion as the negative we have not yet acknowledged. Or, alternatively, we can decide, turn, and go directly and look into our own negative… and take a walk on the dark side.

So What Is Self Inquiry?

Just for a moment suppose that everything you think about yourself is inaccurate. 

If you note that it’s not about what you think, but what you think about yourself, then it’s not so strange as it sounds at first. Even so we are so used to accepting or just not questioning that everything we think about ourselves is accurate… until, that is, someone, or events, or circumstances show that what we had previously accepted to be true irrefutably just ain’t so. 

How we react at just such moments is an indication of our actual interest in going further into self inquiry. Because honestly it’s very tempting either to deny it, to ourself, to anyone, shove it to one side; or go on to the next paradigm and take that to be irrefutably so until there is another paradigm shift and the thing has to be reviewed, reluctantly, again, because we know change will come. In any case here we are waiting for the unexpected to happen and, when it comes, impelled from a passive state into a reaction and handling it as best we can.

What is the mind qualified for?

We’re talking about the most fundamental question in life: Who am I? One that we are trying to answer in some way every day of our life. But, maybe without ever consciously asking the question directly. And to be clear, we are not talking about all our acquired knowledge of the world or the skills we acquire to deal with it. All of that, the whole compass of it, is exactly what the mind is supposed to be used for, as an instrument, as a tool toward a chosen purpose. 

What the mind is not qualified for

It’s like a computer, where skills and knowledge are the software which is installed or downloaded in order to run a program, or achieve a particular end or aim. And that knowledge and those skills go on evolving irrespective of any deeper existential question. But the mind as we know it, that instrument of knowledge and skill, is not sufficient in itself to understand the motivating force that drives our aims and desires. Can a computer understand its own motivations and actions, the why of it all? So outside all of that there still remains the fundamental question, what is that purpose?

Sorting out the difference

And this is where we get into trouble because, without really looking into it or without really understanding what’s at stake, the mind will begin to speculate where it has no real jurisdiction. Well, speculation is one thing, but we tend to believe what the mind tells us… until we don’t. And that’s the point where we came in. 

Isn’t it true that we are all looking for the source of our own happiness? If I think that happiness is acquiring and profligating large sums of money, then if I put my knowledge and skills into action to achieve that, then I will be happy. The same is true of artistic ability in pursuit of fame, or just the pursuit of fame itself; or sexual conquest; or more honourable pursuits like a career or family; or even the celebration of suffering as a means to an ulterior motive; and so on. But remember it’s the mind that is telling us what makes us happy, and so, drives us into action.

Now life, as they say, is brief, but it takes long enough to live. And during that time having achieved or partially achieved any aim or goal in the pursuit of happiness, we may come gradually to discover - through someone or events or circumstances - that something we had always accepted to be so is shown irrefutably to be just not like that; that happiness no longer lies where we thought it did. So we reassess, and now, I used to be like that but now I’m into this… and another attempt to find irrefutable happiness.

So returning to the original premise, if we accept that though the mind is highly qualified in dealing with knowledge and skill, it is not qualified to answer the questions that lie behind the motivating force in life. Is it then so strange to say, Hey wait a moment, suppose in that one specialised field - who am I, what am I here for, with what purpose, what is really my unqualified aim? - just suppose for a moment that everything I’ve ever thought about in that way could be wrong, or inaccurate, or not-thought-through, or wait a minute, I never thought about it before anyway, or… fergedaboudit! But before you do say, forget it, check this out from a previous post which slots right in here so no apologies for including it again:

A salutary tale

A team of road builders set off to build a road between two places in the forest. They were an elite group and each of the men brought a particular skill which was respected by the others. Their morale was high and there was a tightly knit sense of comradeship. The clearing of the forest was under way and the road was begun. They worked hard and obstacles were overcome through good leadership and teamwork. 

There was one among the men a young chap who didn’t seem to quite fit in. He didn’t join in the heavy social evenings when the day’s work was done. He always seemed to be thinking differently from the others and they didn’t understand him. The other men were friendly enough but as he continued holding himself aloof they began to look on him with less affection and soon were implying in their tone of voice things about his usefulness because he didn’t actually seem to be doing very much.

One day when the project was well under way the young fellow shinned up the tallest tree on the highest ground. When he came down he looked satisfied. There was a meeting of the managers and foremen going on when he got back and he boldly interrupted it, 'Wrong forest,' he said, 'we’re in the wrong forest, the road's in the wrong forest' 

There was a strange stillness for a moment and then everyone started going on just as if they hadn’t seen or heard the young fellow. He couldn’t understand it. Wasn’t this the single most important piece of information for the whole project? Finally he got to talk to one of the men who was a bit more friendly. 'What’s happening? You know we’re building the road in the wrong forest?' 'Yes,' the other man replied, 'but it's a really good road.' So they went on building the road just as before.

So what is self inquiry?

So what is self inquiry? It means wanting to get some kind of perspective on the whole life, so you can come out of it at the other end and say yes, I pursued what I knew I was searching for, as accurately as I could, and to the best of my ability. This is not some unfashionable moral tweet, but a way of accurately aligning the ability with the vision. Not building a really good road in the wrong forest.

It really gets under way practically when you become pro-active in looking into the mind’s presumptions as deeply and as accurately as possible - you want to find the inaccuracies and be glad of it when you find them, instead of just waiting for events or the turmoil of life to compel confrontation with uncomfortable truths - which they do sooner or later. It means celebrating (in some small unembarrassing personal way of course) when something reveals that something in your own philosophy is inaccurate and you can throw it out and move on up to a higher understanding without hesitation or looking back. 

We all have a philosophy, even though we may not call it that. And we may not recognise it very well (even if we do think we got one) because, whaddya know, it keeps on changing, according to mind, according to circumstance, and according to convenience. So, really, no philosophy? And the measure of an accurate philosophy? What is true, what holds good, in any circumstance. This is where self enquiry begins. Because everything that follows after is predicated on that one thing - what remains accurate in any circumstance. So the question I ask myself is, How can you know that you know this, that you are not what you think you are, and not want to do something about it. Build a really good road... but in the right forest.

And in the end…

The illusory power of the mind is fascinating. In meditation just try questioning the validity of any thought you like. Hold it up to the light and acknowledge it, observe it. It’s real enough, yes, but how real? Really real? Will it be there in the same way tomorrow, a week, a year, twenty years? Does that change the way you observe it? Check anything you really believed in when you were younger and see if it's still the same. Can the temporary nature of any thought define who I am? Among so many other thoughts? Really? Question who is having these thoughts. So where then does the identity lie? Thoughts, impressions and memories are in you but they do not ultimately define who you are.

Blink and You Miss It

The inner world may seem quite separate from normal life, but it is interacting and being influenced by it all the time. The question is how much do we know what is going on there.

There is a kind of threshold of attention. Below it most things go unnoticed, unobserved, and therefore, as we perceive it, it doesn't actually appear to happen. Or we dismiss it unconsciously, thinking something like, that’s not really me. But go above the threshold and suddenly it becomes an issue, grabbing all your attention.

There are signals going on all the time, in sensations in the body, in the mind and feelings, as well as outside from others, but which fall below the attention threshold. Either we do not notice them at all, or we phase them out because they are considered to be either too trivial or too much to manage. Or we do notice them, misinterpret them, the mind starts working them over, and we end up in trouble. In any case the result is the same - we go on accumulating those little experiences as memories leaving impressions as samskaras, little time-bombs in the mind.

What is happening in the present moment?

Somebody says something to you which you don't quite like. It creates a subliminal reaction. Do you notice your slight change in posture, the slight change of expression, the one eighth of a degree change inside? That moment - when we usually blink and miss it - is catching it in the present moment. And then being inwardly still, not reacting, remaining the observer. The aim is to catch it then, because it may be quite different from what becomes rationalized a moment later, when the first perception gets dismissed out of hand and trivialises it.

What you find in practice when you observe closely is that while it looks like you're moving in one direction the momentum may actually be moving in a different direction. (That's a bit cryptic but it is concisely accurate.) What also puts people off is that the intensity of experience increases at first - well it will if you pay more attention to it - but that intensity observed by the stillness of awareness takes you to the nucleus and then reveals stuff you had no idea of before. And when revealed, untouched so to speak, it has no further influence.

That all begins with catching it in the present moment. Keep in mind that nothing is trivial to the observer, to the awareness. Everything is seen equally. Because the smallest change is an indicator, the beginning of further changes that we do not yet know of. Miss it and it’s gone. And then everything just seems to remain at the same level of normal perception. And then we may even ask why nothing ever seems to change.

Choose the direction, choose the Intensity

As you go deeper into the inner world and the quieter you can remain, you can actually hunt the stuff down - choose the direction, choose the Intensity - that's called self inquiry. Then even if you do notice it well and become a keen investigator, the mind may still not know well enough how to leave alone. It's a very personal skill. You practice at it, continually, for a long time. It’s all related to the present moment; and there's no judgment there. The observation of the mind in this context is a meditation in itself, the essential one that is often overlooked. 

Trust for an instant in the absolute certainty of consciousness, a force or presence within as real as can be, as the underlying substratum, your true self - ever present, quite still, at peace, and totally untouched and unaffected by anything it observes. Why not? You can at least suppose for a moment. It changes everything. Then you need not mind anything the mind brings to notice, however it may originate. How we see is how we experience. And that’s the way out. Just be patient… and observe... just observe. Watch and wait… watch and wait…

Life's First Impression

Are we a blank slate, an empty space, when we come into life? Or are there tendencies and inclinations that come in with us? Either way what is that first impression when the curtain goes up and we make our entrance?

In 1979 I was travelling in Sri Lanka taking the first steps on a long search. I ended up staying in a vipassana retreat centre for two weeks. It was very austere. There was total silence and no eye contact with anyone. Male and female were divided, of course; we had a small cell each about 8' x 6'; the bed was just a concrete step, with no mattress or pillow. The day started at 4 o'clock with a hot drink; there were two meals a day, breakfast and lunch, which were completed before midday, then no food until the next morning. 

The whole day was taken up with meditation. The actual practice, to begin with was breath awareness. Just watch the breath, that's all, all the time. Lose breath awareness, when you know you've lost it, return to breath awareness. Repeat. Continue.

There were four scheduled sittings of one-hour each; the rest of the time was either for private meditation in your cell, or walking meditation around the veranda to relieve the body of sitting. The walking was done very slowly, eyes down, with full awareness of movement, and we were not supposed even to look up at the sky or the surrounding countryside.