“If consciousness does not land anywhere, that state I tell you is without sorrow, affliction, or despair.” This statement of the Buddha sounds very appealing - who wouldn’t want to be without sorrow or despair? But as the Sixth Patriarch said, “everything arises in pairs of opposites.” It is impossible to do away with sorrow but keep joy. So we should ask ourselves what the Buddha is pointing to with this sentence instead of just going for the goodies of no sorrow and no despair.
Consciousness that doesn’t land anywhere is also called “unsupported consciousness.” It means that the six senses work freely without abiding anywhere. There is seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling, and thinking, but it doesn’t have a ground to land on; there is no “me” owning it. The six senses are nothing else than the activity of emptiness and without any lasting substance. Unsupported consciousness is not about erasing or suppressing the activity and impact of the senses but about realizing that there is neither a landing-pat, a substantial and separate “me,” nor anything with a substance that could land and stick.
Usually, we are very involved with our thoughts and our feelings. Good feelings we don’t mind, but when we notice that we are stuck in a loop of unpleasant thoughts and feelings, we might turn to therapy, positive thinking, or meditation to deal with the problem. We want to get back to something positive; we try to be quiet and relaxed or even aim for a state of no-thought. All of this is still based on a reference point, a “me” attempting to manipulate what is happening and most likely getting frustrated in the process. We are trying to get rid of what disturbs us, hoping to achieve an undisturbed me, a “me” without sorrow and despair. We cannot stop thoughts from arising, and we cannot stop hearing a sound or smelling fragrances. Buddha-nature reveals itself freely, working as the six senses without stopping anywhere. They happen in free fall, not landing anywhere. In this wondrous and ungraspable process, in this constant change, there arises sorrow and joy, and yet it doesn’t have a lasting substance. Our habit of dividing things into either-or, existing or non-existing, delusion, and enlightenment makes sense to “me,” still, what we are looking for doesn’t fall into those parameters - it transcends it from the very beginning. So can we see and realize in the vivid and always fresh immediacy of what is happening that there is no “me” separate from what is happening, that nothing else is needed in this moment of complete fullness?
Painting: Lauris Phillips
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Deep gratitude for this offering & teaching