– Musings on contemplation, consciousness, & the mechanism by which reality is “created” –
For most of my life, I believed that I was simply experiencing my reality.
Eventually I started noticing the nuance of how reality was “happening” to me.
Life happened.
People happened.
Pain happened.
Loss happened.
Circumstances happened.
Even breathing seemed to just “happen.”
My reactions felt automatic because they seemed justified by what was occurring around me.
As humans, we identify with language such as “this is my life” or “I am breathing,” continuously substantiating the reality of a permanent and stable self experiencing something separate. This is just one subtle example of how everything including experience itself, creates duality. This is not a flaw, there is nothing wrong with the way reality presents in this way. It is just an observation. Viewing life in this dualistic way is just another adaptive feature our consciousness has developed over time and it has served us well in our quest for survival.
Meditation gradually revealed something I had never considered; the reality I was experiencing was not separate from the way I was participating in it.
We are life. Life is everything. Life is even death. Life is even “nothing”. There is something so simple about it. I can’t quite describe it using words such as “profound” or “beautiful,” for that would be taking away from the non-experience of “nothingness.”
This realization did not arrive as a belief.
It arrived through thousands of hours spent observing the moment-to-moment unfolding of experience.
Breath.
Sensations.
Thoughts.
Emotions.
Attention.
Memory.
Identity.
Over time, something became increasingly obvious.
Human beings do not merely perceive or experience reality. We participate in its construction. We are the participation, the construction, and the result.
I would go as far as to say that we choose the way our reality presents itself, however unconscious it may be.
The fact that it is not typically a conscious choice, is not relevant here. We are not usually afforded this sort of meta-insight in our normal waking life, nor at the beginning of meditative path. Therefore, the challenge and opportunity that presents itself, is that one must develop the capacity to notice how we actively make the choice/decision.
Every experience is conditioned by previous experiences. Every interpretation is conditioned by previous interpretations. Every reaction emerges from countless prior reactions.
What we call “reality” is inseparable from the preferences, assumptions, fears, hopes, habits, memories, and conditioning through which it is filtered.
The process happens so quickly that it appears solid. Permanent. Objective. Self-evident.
Meditative practice slows this process down enough for it to become visible.
A thought appears.
A sensation appears.
An emotion appears.
A preference appears.
The mind moves toward what it wants and away from what it does not want.
Meaning is created.
Identity forms.
The experience of “me” appears.
The experience of “other” appears.
A world emerges.~
The deeper practice became, the less interested I was in changing experience and the more interested I grew in understanding how experience itself was being produced.
How does a sensation become suffering?
How does a memory become identity?
How does a preference become reality?
How does a thought become a self?
These questions eventually led me beyond meditation as stress reduction, wellness, or self-improvement.
They led into ontology.
The study of what exists.
They led into phenomenology.
The study of how experience appears.
They led into direct investigation of consciousness itself.
Much of human life revolves around state-seeking.
We seek security.
Connection.
Recognition.
Purpose.
Money.
Health.
Healing.
Understanding.
Even spiritual practice can become another expression of this movement.
A self attempting to become a better self.
A self attempting to awaken.
A self attempting to arrive somewhere.
What becomes visible through contemplative practice is that this movement is often what perpetuates the sense of separation we are trying to resolve.
The mind continuously creates a future in which something important will finally happen.
A future version of ourselves will be more complete.
More healed.
More successful.
More awake.
More worthy.
Attention becomes organized around “becoming”.
The immediacy of experience is overlooked.
The moment is converted into a means toward some imagined destination.
Meditation has repeatedly invited me back to a simpler question:
What is happening before the story?
Before interpretation.
Before identity.
Before preference.
Before the assumption that this experience means something about me.
What is happening before all of the meaning-making systems do what they do best?
This investigation reveals a strange paradox.
The self appears real enough to function.
It appears real enough to work, love, grieve, create, serve, and participate in the world.
Yet when examined closely, it cannot be located as a fixed entity. It appears as an ongoing process.
A collection of sensations, perceptions, memories, thoughts, habits, and conditioned tendencies interacting moment by moment.
The same is true for much of what we call reality.
Everything appears through conditions.
Everything depends on other things.
Everything is participating in everything else.
Nothing exists independently.
This is not a philosophical position for me.
It is an observation that continues to deepen through practice.
As a social worker, caregiver, meditator, and student of the human experience, I have become increasingly interested in the places where personal psychology, collective conditioning, contemplative practice, and direct experience intersect.
Many of us spend our lives attempting to heal our pain while remaining unaware of the mechanisms through which that pain is continuously recreated. It is only natural to pathologize our lives.
Many of us spend years searching for answers while never examining the assumptions hidden within the questions themselves.
Meditation is a framework/lens that can be applied to anything we do. It isn’t some formal, structured practice as much as it is simply directing the mind towards intentional awareness. In this way, meditation offers a unique opportunity.
It allows us to observe the machinery.
To notice how preferences shape perception.
How identities are constructed.
How stories solidify.
How suffering perpetuates itself.
Not so that we can escape life, become detached from the world, or transcend our humanity.
So that we can participate consciously.
The most meaningful shifts in my life have not come from discovering new truths. They have come from recognizing the structures through which I was unknowingly creating my experience.
The invitation of contemplative practice is remarkably simple:
Become intimate with experience.
Observe carefully.
Question deeply.
Notice what is being assumed, insisted upon, created, resisted, pursued.
Eventually a different relationship to life begins to emerge. One rooted less in certainty.
Less in identity.
Less in becoming.
More in direct participation.
More in awareness.
More in curiosity.
More in responsibility.
The question that continues to guide my life, my practice, and my work remains the same. It is the same question I like proposing to others:
How am I participating in reality?
How are you participating in reality?
