Passages Vol. 2: The Simple Feeling of Being

---

When you are describing, explaining, or just inwardly feeling your “self,” what you are actually doing, whether you know it or not,  is drawing a mental line or boundary across the whole field of your experience, and everything on the inside of that boundary you are feeling or calling your “self,” while everything on the outside of that boundary you feel to be “not self.” Your self-identity, in other words, depends entirely on where you draw that boundary line.

Where have you drawn your boundaries?

In my 30s and 40s, I focused on what I would become. In my 50s and 60s, I reflected more on what I had become. Boundaries become more visible with age.

When I surrender the lead role I play in the dramas of my life by watching them like a movie director watching a scene, my boundaries soften. This practice changes us from the inside out. When the boundaries of Self receede, the "We" in relationships becomes more important.

…in the pure Witness you are invisible…You are the pure source of awareness, and not anything that arises in that awareness. So you abide in awareness.

As we age, it gets harder to not get caught up in dramas that hijack emotional well-being. Probably because we like to be in control.

I used to believe I was the architect of my circumstances. In time, I discovered that the most important circumstances of my life are beyond control. Acceptance became more important. I believe it's a superpower.

I began a meditation practice twenty years ago and was quickly sold on its therapeutic value. Nevertheless, it frustrated me when the peace of meditation evaporated in the strident light of stressful events.

How does one live from peace?

Eastern philosophers claim there is an embedded wisdom in awareness. I decided to pursue it, but how?

There’s a saying that once the student is ready, the teacher arrives. It was true for me! The book Relax and Be Aware by Sayadaw U Tejaniya, introduced me to the practice of witnessing presence throughout the day. Tejaniya claimed that wisdom would follow and I found it to be true.

Wilber sheds light on the importance of this:

The most you can do, by way of temporal effort, is to avoid these two major mistakes (don’t try to see the Witness as an object, just rest in the Witness as Seer; don’t try to get rid of the ego, just feel it, and that will bring you to the edge, to the very precipice of your own Original Face. At that point, in every way, it is very much out of your hands.

As we learn to accept the things we cannot control, circumstances lose their power over us. Relax and Be Aware revealed a wisdom gained through experience rather than knowledge. Love works in a similar manner.

Here’s where this comes together:

You are not your thoughts, for you are aware of them. You are not your feelings, for you are aware of them. You are not any of the objects you can see, for you are aware of them. Something in you is aware of all these things. So tell me: What is it in you that is conscious of everything?

When we let go of Self and relax into the simple feeling of being, we discover a new way of living. We may doubt many things about our knowledge and beliefs, but one thing that is beyond all doubt is that we are aware that we are aware. As we abide in this deep awareness, a new wisdom is revealed.

“Why is that important?” you might ask.

Wilber offers a clue:

In a sense the soul or the Witness in you is the highest pointer toward Spirit and the last barrier to Spirit.

How could it be any other way?

Awareness binds us to the world and each other. In pure awareness we transcend the thought-created Self to fully participate in the communion of existence, which is nothing more, and nothing less, than the simple feeling of being.

————————————————

If something in this post resonated, why not share it with a friend?

Comments and emails are always welcome.