Transcription
Here's a great question somebody left under one of my videos and comments. Question is, how is the illusion of identification with thoughts possible? If there is no one that is identifying with thoughts, on what does this illusion build? Or, on what does this illusion build on, is what they said. What is the mechanism? What is at its origin if there is no one at its origin? Okay.
So, I have a simple answer to this and then maybe I'll unpack it a little bit. The simple answer is I'll ask like I'll ask you a question, right? This is the answer. The answer sometimes is in the form of a question, and this is one of those cases. So, the question to you is: why do you believe that if you know the answer to those questions, it's going to help you? Like, what do you think it's going to give you?
I recommend actually sitting with that because this is um this is a common kind of question I get, uh and I give similar answers most of the time, but I'm really inclined to point you back to what is the impetus to ask the questions, um and even more importantly, what is the what is the what is the underlying belief in the curiosity itself? Right? Because what I know from experience and what I know from this realization process that we're talking about is: if I explain it to you in a way that satisfies you intellectually, which I probably could—like I could tune into what you probably want to hear or how you're thinking about it and then explain it in that way—but it doesn't do anything for you. If anything, I mean, at best, it's it's neutral. At worst, it gives you a map. It gives you not not necessarily a map but a it gives you a satisfied mental landscape around awakening or something like that, like a a place that gives you um a sense of you know what this is, you know how this is.
I'm not trying to give you that. I'm never trying to give anybody a cognitive framework. I'm never trying to give anybody a sense that this is how this works and now you understand it. I'm just not doing that, right? Um I'm not trying to do that. The the point of realization, the point of awakening has to be transformational. It has to be fundamentally transformational. And the way it's fundamentally transformational, especially at first, is that we have to release our bonding from the conceptual. Our binding, I'm sorry, release our binding from the conceptual. We have to release our or we have to relinquish our grip on on concepts, understanding in this way. Um and it doesn't matter how nuanced those concepts are. Sometimes what happens is we we do get a little taste, like we get an experiential taste, but then without realizing it, that taste gets kind of co-opted back into concepts and so now we have more nuanced concepts. Now we have concepts about subtler spiritual things like identity or maybe even Buddhist terminology like dependent coising or something, and then we we kind of convince ourselves that that's like the answer, like understanding that better is the answer somehow, but it really isn't. Um the answer has to be transformational. This this whole thing we're talking about has to be transformational. Uh if it's not, then it's not what I'm talking about. Period. If there's no transformation at the identity level, then that's simply not what I'm talking about. Maybe it's something else. Um, maybe it's what other people are talking about, but it's not what I'm talking about.
Uh, I should say this is a bit of an aside, but also this is why the message that there's no there's no transformation that's going to happen, there's no one to transform—um, the idea of awakening itself is flawed. Like that kind of mindset, that kind of way of pointing—um I categorically disagree with it. It's just not true. There is transformation that happens for sure. Um and without that you're just rearranging concepts, just more of the same, you know. Um yeah, I don't know how much more clear that needs to be. Uh so as far as understand, so so that's the simple answer. The simple answer is: look into why you feel like that's going to help you to know that; or another way of saying it: feel like you know, feel into why or how that could even satisfy you. Would it satisfy you if I gave you an answer in terms, like in spiritual terms or something? I mean, I can I can explain things in a more specific way as far as concepts and so forth. And sometimes I do, but I don't do it to give you that framework. Um, I don't do it because that's the point of the realization process. So, so I don't do it very often. But the key for you is to look into why you want to know it that way, right? or or maybe just ask yourself: do I want to understand this or do I want to live it?
There was a beautiful line in the beginning of one of the books I read. I I feel like it was the three pillars of Zen, but it could have been Philip Kapleau Roshi's other book. Um, and it was the dedication at the beginning of the book, and it said, "Dedicated. This book is dedicated not to those who wish to seek, but those who wish to find." And that hit immediately. Like, I could feel that. I didn't even have to think about what that meant. I I knew what it meant. I could feel it. And I also knew I was in the latter category. I just knew it. Wasn't a competitive thing. I didn't feel better than anyone. I just knew I'm not interested in seeking anything. Seeking sucks. I I want to find it, right? Um and that's what I'm talking about. I'm always talking about that. And I also will tell you, no matter what you believe, how convinced you have yourself that awakenings don't happen or they they don't happen in the way I'm talking about or whatever it is, I promise you it's possible for you. It is possible for you to have a profound and fundamental transformation at the identity level. It definitely so um yeah, this is another way of saying this is non-conceptual.
Uh I think I I mentioned in my book early on um in one of the preliminary chapters I said you're going to hear me say many times in many ways that this is not about concepts, and I even explain why I say that repeatedly in the book, and I do say it repeatedly because it bears repeating because the mind is so adaptable. The thought system is so freaking adaptable, you could even say it's insidious. It it it can co-opt anything. Um, and let me explain what I mean by that. When I say it can co-opt anything, I don't mean it can take your realization away. It can't make reality not be reality. That's absurd. But it what it can do is it can morph and form itself around any reflection of thought. Even though even if those reflections of thought are completely distorted, including a memory of an awakening, a memory of a realization, a memory of a moment of clarity. That's what the mind does all day long. It's taking snapshots and turning them into narratives. And then if then you get kind of hypnotized with the narrative. All I'm doing is waking you up from that hypnosis. I'm just saying, "Hey, you know, I'm meeting you in the hypnosis. I'm entering your hypnotic state with you and saying, 'How's this feel? Does this feel okay? Something feel off here?'" Right? Does it feel a little unsatisfying? Maybe you can wake up from this. That's all I'm doing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
And that hypnotic state, that narrative is built out of concepts, very fundamental concepts: past, present, future, problems and solutions, seeking and achieving um the idea of you apart from everything. The idea of you as an individual, uh the idea that you inhabit a body, all of these ideas are um so deeply rooted in our whole thought system, but they are thoughts. They're all thoughts, and you can wake up from the binding to those thoughts. Once you wake up from the binding to the thoughts, then really no thought can totally grab you. You might get hypnotized here and there, but you never really believe them in the way you did before. Not at an identity level. And that's why an awakening is so important and so valuable and why I point to it all the time as the the really important preliminary step in this whole process. Kencho awakening. Um and that that first awakening is really marked by largely going beyond thought and concept. So when once you've done that, then these kinds of questions aren't so important anymore. You may you may wonder about those things later as you start investigating identity really closely and looking at the mechanism of it. You may get curious in a different way. But often these questions come from a more conceptual place of like, oh, if I could just understand it, if I could just understand awakening identity, something would happen, something would shift. Sometimes they come from a place of s not like uh skepticism, right? Like like there it's like you're almost trying to discount the awakening process by saying, you know, it doesn't like it show pointing out the contradictions in it or something, right? But again, there's going to be all kinds of logical contradictions when you start really looking at identity. Of course, there are, because identity is a nothing but a logical contradiction. Doesn't it can't exist, right? It's absurd actually, but you don't really get that sense until you look closely at it.
So, another way of approaching this is: instead of looking for conceptual answers to those questions from me or from anyone or even from yourself, instead look at where they point. Use those questions as an arrow to point back to the source of the question itself. So the question, how is the illusion of identification with thoughts possible? Um I want you to look back and see how does it feel to believe one thought, and you have to start by tracking thought. So notice what thoughts in your head right this moment. What does it feel like to buy into that thought? What does it feel like to track that thought? And then what does it feel like to to feel like that thought is you? You don't feel like I had a thought. You feel like that's reality. I'm I'm identified with that thought. Like you're like you're wearing it or it's wearing you. Yeah. That's what I want you to look at. That's the answer to your question in in practical inquiry terms rather than conceptual terms. Yeah. That's how you take these questions. They're fine. The questions are fine. Don't look for conceptual answers though. Use them as catalysts. Yeah. Um and it says if there is no one that is identifying with thoughts, if you do you believe there is no one identifying with thoughts because you've heard it or can you see it directly? If you can see directly that there is no one identifying with thoughts, then what I would say is: rest in that, rest in the non-identifying why, because it's amazing, it's vast, it's revolutionary. Right. So find it. If you don't have access to it yet, dig in and find it. You know, find that truth in real time, experientially instead of conceptually. Yeah. This is how I'd tell you to work with these questions. So they're good questions, and I'm not picking on you. Um many many people ask these types of questions. I just thought it would be a really good jumping off point to make a few points about how this works, this awakening process, um, and how it relates to conceptual frameworks.