Please note that Paul's early material from which the "Slaps" were taken has been edited and is now available in his book "Escape To Everywhere" (February 2015) available directly from Paul at: https://www.createspace.com/5116702
A mind identified as a wave is in denial of the ocean.It's that simple.
All there is, is consciousness. All you are is THAT. That space in which everything appears, moment by moment streaming through.
But our minds become identified with appearances. The mind has become identified as the body. We’re like a bunch of waves looking at the other waves, totally consumed in a wave world of our own interpretation, when all there is is ocean.
"That wave’s faster than I am. That wave is getting to the shore before me. I want to pick up the shells. I don’t want to break in Stinson Beach, I want to break in Hawaii."
There is a seeing that is available at all times. No matter what your head is telling you about what’s looking, underneath all that is pure seeing. All the time. Every moment. Seeing is not defined by your idea of what looking is, with all the opinions, pontification, judgments and critiques of how you’re doing and not doing.
As
The conditioned head acknowledges the conscious contact, consciousness moving through the body, then it claims it: Paul is seeing. Paul is hearing. Paul tastes that burrito. The object has claimed the movement of subjectivity through it and now claims the expression of subjectivity as “mine.”
This selfing is such a small mental process. Its whole claim to fame is being a body. From this appearance of the body it produces the effect of being a self. Like an intoxicant. Everything it entertains is entertained as the self, which limits what it can entertain. Everything is perceived as to how it pertains to me. In the process there is a denial of THAT — the ocean — though all that is, is that.
You cannot entertain the truth as the self because you cannot make the truth an object. It’s the subject of all subjects. If you want to be a self it has to be an object to you; and that’s why you’ll never know the truth.
There is no object called Paul as a subject. There’s just subjectivity. That’s the truth.
Everywhere cannot be recognized by a special somewhere. It’s impossible. It’s the recognition that you’re not this, the body, that affords you the vision of seeing from everywhere. Things that were confusing get very clear.
“You” become irrelevant. Hallelujah.
As a wave there is concern about where you’ll break. But as the ocean? Obviously not. Appearances change but the quality of ocean remains. Just a movement of mind called selfing. Appearing to be a self. Appearing, appearing, appearing. When in fact nothing has changed.
The mind requires relevance. Always doing and having, to attain value for itself. When you were a kid you didn’t need to accrue value; it’s when you grew into selfing that you decided you had to make yourself into something.
Did you think that way when you were three years old? Were you having these incredible convoluted moments? "I have no value." No. You were too busy playing, running around, immediate and spontaneous. The narration had not begun. The introspection had not yet begun. This whole partitioning of everywhere into all these special somewhere segments had not begun. The gated community of the special somewhere wasn’t built yet.
Qualities of that unadorned life were wonder and awe, which seem infrequent for most adults now.
So let’s say you find out the trouble is self. Do you sign up for the two-year course, “How to get over the obsession with self”? Wouldn’t that be obsession with self? Self can’t get out of self. How could a product of a mental process ever leave the mental process? How could a wave ever leave the realm of waves? It’s meant to arise and to depart.
And all the fears that accompany that nature of coming and inevitably going are deeply embedded in that condition, the fear of dying, because your waves will be over then.
How many waves have broken out in the ocean? Billions and billions of them. As the ocean ceased to be? No. You want fear to be removed? Remove what thinks it has the fear!
How you remove it is to realize it was never there to begin with. What works for me is to realize I’m not a self. It gets me out of the whole thing. Released from the need to seek a way out of it.
It’s really incredible when you parachute into this moment. Just drop in and you’re totally here.
No idea of any place being better than here, or reflecting that once there was ever a greater here. Dismissed from the mental experience, conscious of conscious contact. It is a very satisfying event.
Everyone here thinks they are an individual wave in the ocean. And of course we have our wave worries. "Who’s going to beat me to shore. I've got a lot of kelp in me, how did I get that? Did anyone see me from the beach? Am I a cresting wave or a droopy wave?" Attention and interest totally consumed with wave qualities.
All those ideas of being a wave are produced by the mental process. The mental process is telling you how to be a wave. Re-presenting what it’s like to be a wave. What it was like to be a past wave. Definitely, what it’s like to be a future wave.
All the while there is forgetfulness of the essence of every wave, which is the ocean.
Coming to a meeting as waves to discuss the topic of the ocean is in a deep sense hilarious. Because all you need to do – is nothing. All the doing is an activity of being a wave. The wave trying to grasp the essence of the ocean is only reaffirming its wave-ness. Defining the ocean as, “I’m separate; I'm not THAT.”
Which is self's true security! It will adore the ocean as long as it can do that as a wave. It may consider one wave like a Jesus or
So we’re not discussing the qualities and depth of the ocean – only questioning, “Are you a wave?” If you realize you are not a wave – slap! – you’re immediately the ocean! Inherently you’re not a wave; you’re an expression of the ocean. Space expressing itself as appearances.
To another wave you are a wave. That’s the way a wave sees another wave. The act of seeing waves as waves is an active denial of the ocean, attention on what it’s like to be a wave but not what it’s like to be an ocean.
As soon as you see with the possibility that, “I may possibly not be that,” what may occur is that the truth will ring true. There will be a sense of ocean while there is the appearance of a wave. They’re not exclusive.
When the wave recognizes it’s the ocean that doesn’t stop it from being a wave. The wave can continue to be wavelike; but now there is a sense of being the ocean. Allowing the wave to travel lighter. Actually enjoy its waveness.
In the presence of the wetness, the immensity of the ocean, all the worries about being a wave become dismissed. You see the wave is a little bogus presentation.
Waving and waving and waving. Seeing only appearances, taking this wave to be real. Living on the surface of the ocean as though there were only what was appearing there. So concerned with what is going to happen to me – which is an appearance.
All the worrying you’re doing about "you" in the future is about a complete stranger. The person you’re so concerned about won’t be the same person then. The concern about you, even a second from now, is about a complete stranger!
What’s going to happen to you is, you’re going to disappear. Oh shit!
Yes. The narrator is going to come to an end. It’s going to run out of time and it’s going to disappear. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! It’s not looking forward to that event, if you’ve ever noticed. It starts yapping and gets really solemn worrying about death.
Once you recognize the ocean, it doesn’t negate the appearance of the wave. We simply recognize it for the appearance it is. The appearance rises and has its little life moving toward the shore and breaks on it. A moment in the ocean. No ocean died; the ocean did not disappear, only an appearance of it did.
When I pick up the chair you don’t see any remnants of the chair. You may see its effects on other appearances, perhaps marks on the floor, but the space is as though there never had been a chair. It didn’t take weeks of practice to realize there was never a chair; it’s just immediately as though there was never a chair. The chair is just an appearance in space, like the wave.
What we are is that space in which everything is allowed to appear. And everything that appears has a nature: it’s going to disappear. Every wave is going to crest and break.
It’s like light on water. Your mind likes to follow that light. It gets engaged with the blips. And while engaged with the light on the surface it doesn’t sense the wholeness.
The light comes and goes, varying according to circumstances. A little dance on the infinity of the ocean. Not even leaving a footprint on the floor.
What a great bit of news! When you see yourself taking yourself too seriously, have a good laugh. Ha ha ha!
In recovery one looks at obsession with self. What I choose to call identification. The mind is identified with this appearance, being Paul. Totally engaged. It’s forgotten its nature of being an ocean.
I don’t try to show you a picture of the ocean, saying, “Look how big and wonderful it is.” Because every time you’re looking at it, you’re looking at it from the point of view of being a wave.
I don’t care about the beauty of the ocean; I want to question the wave. If I’m not the wave – boom! I’m the ocean.
You may decide, “I want to feel the ocean as a wave. I want to become the ocean as a wave. I’ve been practicing at this temple for 20 years.” The Temple of ocean-ness, while you are a wave.
But the wave is persistently established AS YOU. That’s the denial of the qualities of the ocean. You don’t see the wave as the deterrent. Not that you can’t get the ocean. You ARE the ocean.
What’s the dilemma here?
With the identification in place that I’m a wave the only thing the ocean can be to you is an experience. The mind wants to have an experience of the ocean, but if push comes to shove it’s going to hang on to the idea of being a wave.
People practice for years and have a lot of experiences of the ocean, but always AS a wave. You get bored: Let’s just go to Norstrom’s and shop. Because the denial is in place. Because we never questioned it. We take ourselves to be this real solid wave and the ocean as a topic we may entertain. Meanwhile the wave continues.
But the wave isn’t going to continue. It appeared because of certain conditions and is going to disappear when those conditions change. And we live as though we are the one solid long-lasting thing here.
The special somewhere is trying to take on the qualities of Everywhere. You cannot take on the qualities of Everywhere as a special somewhere. You ARE the Everywhere.
For the special somewhere to take on the qualities of the Everywhere is to extract the Everywhere-ness out of it.
What’s appearing seems so incredibly important. But what’s appearing is not incredibly important – not to the space. And if you’re truly THAT . . . Ha ha ha ha! To give all of that up for this (thumping the body) – it’s like that movie in which Nicholas Gage decides to give up being an angel in order to make it with Meg Ryan. (Probably to get divorced two years later.) What an insane arrogance of appearances!
Like a freakin’ angel would give up its angelhood to come here, to get some ass? The appearance think it’s so much cooler to be an appearance than all of THAT. Give me a freaking break. The Archangel Michael ought to slap some sense into him. "Come on, Bro. You’re delusional. You want to appear and disappear?"
The wave can have exquisite suffering: All those crazy ideas that you can entertain when you believe you are separate from the ocean. Believing love has to come from outside; that peace is something you can do and have, you have to do something to get peace.
Talk about consumerism! We’ve become consumers ever since we became identified as this head. Seeking constantly. Consuming experiences. Believing the more experiences we have the more we’ll have of life. But experiences come and go. They are an appearance to an appearance.
And if we keep on identifying with what we’re not? It’s exhausting being separate. Do you know how much work your mind has to do to be a wave? It’s got to be on it all day long. All day meanwhile the wetness of the ocean is seeping through its little concept of being a wave.
When the truth comes through, not to you but through you, it’s set down as a “spiritual experience.” A pause. Moment of respite. “Oh, what did I do it for that to happen? I’ll go over what I did that feels so good.”
You didn’t do anything! Your true nature seeped through, that’s all. Wetness becomes a commodity that dryness tries to find. Or sell. Or privatize. When it is our inherent nature to be wet! As your nature continues to seep through, the wave will dream itself out of the dream of being a wave and the ocean-ness will be more and more obvious. There will be more wetness in it.
There is a subservience to the mental realm. The mind is re-presenting conscious contact as you being the one that’s conscious, which is causing a total experience of unconsciousness. Totally unconscious to the fact of ocean.
All day, totally in the appearance of being a wave. The life of a wave re-presented constantly. “I could have been bigger, I should have been smaller.” It goes on and on. Your interest is absorbed in it. Unbelievable. All the attention thrown into me.
What do you need to do about it? Absolutely nothing. Just become awake to it.
It’s really just getting disarmed in a sense, all your little mechanisms. Putting down the grasping. Noticing what’s obvious. It’s consciousness. Seeing.
Because the mind says, “I’m seeing,” that doesn’t mean it’s true. Just a mental process claiming the seeing. The little mind can claim the big mind. The big mind is just seeing. Always available at all times. No matter how much clinging, how much claiming you do, the one moment it’s entertained not to be you, it all stops.
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To see the complete list of Short Slaps: http://paulheddermanslaps.blogspot.com/
