Nothing Happens To You

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Nirmala

Nothing Happens To You

Post by Nirmala »

Everything happens within you. Nothing ever happens to you. You are the nondual consciousness that is experiencing the words on this page, and yet that consciousness is so empty and spacious that nothing ever happens to it. Just as a thunderstorm passes through the sky but does not happen to the sky, every thought, feeling, desire, sensation and event happens in awareness, but does not happen to it.

This is more obvious when it comes to an external event that doesn't take place near you. A bird flying high above you or the distant sound of traffic obviously happens within the field of awareness, but it doesn't feel like these events happen to you. Yet if that bird flew right in front of your face, or that traffic was slowing you down on the highway, there is a tendency to think something is happening to you. And anything that arises within your own body and mind feels even more like something that happens to you. If a strong experience of fear or desire or confusion arises, we tend to think it has happened to us instead of within us.

The sky is unharmed by the thunderstorm, and that is why we would say the storm happened in the sky instead of to the sky. What about your experiences, thoughts, feelings, and desires? Do they harm your awareness? Or do they eventually pass like a summer raincloud? Is your awareness damaged by them, or is awareness still empty and awake, awaiting the next experience after a sensation, feeling, or thought passes?

Your body is within awareness. Because of its physical nature, something can happen to it that leaves a relatively lasting effect, but what about the awareness that is experiencing the body? Every sensation comes and goes in awareness. The sensations in your body are always changing and shifting, and then your attention also moves to other elements of your experience. Even a chronic painful condition is not in your awareness every moment. So even physical events or injuries do not happen to you, they happen within you. What would it mean if a sore muscle or a stomach ache was not happening to you, but just within your field of awareness? What if everything that happens within your body is just another event within the open sky of consciousness?

The most surprising thing is that this is even true of your deepest and innermost feelings and desires. There are feelings of unworthiness and intense longings that can arise deep within your chest or abdomen. It can almost seem like they are a part of you. And yet even they are happening within the field of awareness, and not really to you. What would it mean if a deep feeling of sadness or an overwhelming desire for true love was not happening to you, but just within your field of awareness? What if everything that moves within your heart and mind is just another event within the open sky of consciousness?

All experience passes like a raincloud and leaves behind the fresh, open space of endless awareness. The source of awareness is always here. You are always here. Everything else happens within awareness. Everything else comes and goes. There is not even a separate you within awareness because you are the source of awareness. And so, nothing happens to you; everything happens within you.

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Re: Nothing Happens To You

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Nirmala wrote:Everything happens within you. Nothing ever happens to you.
I have two failed knees that cause me pain, often when I am just sitting or sometimes lying in bed. These knees are not load bearing, which means I cannot use them to hold my weight. Only these tings are within me.

I cannot walk and must use a power wheelchair to do anything, even to feed myself. This failure happened to me, as it is a consequence of the external world imposed upon me.

This small example proves what you said is just more new-age bullshit spouted by someone who has no understanding of reality.
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Post by AArdvark »

You actually read that post?

I thought it was just another lousy spammer and was about to delete it. Then I saw there weren't ant hyperlinks. So that makes it just drivel.



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    Post by pinback »

    Yeah, get out of my base, you fuckin' loser!
    I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

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    Re: Nothing Happens To You

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    Tdarcos wrote:Only these things are within me.
    It is true they are within you. The "you" they are within might not be what you think, though.
    I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

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    Re: Nothing Happens To You

    Post by Tdarcos »

    pinback wrote:
    Tdarcos wrote:Only these things are within me.
    It is true they are within you. The "you" they are within might not be what you think, though.
    (Hear me in the voice of an old-fashioned teacher or authority figure talking to a child) Mr. Parish, I am ashamed of you. As an admitted hard atheist that is a weak sort of answer I would expect of an uninformed theist such as a Christian or a Buddhist. The type of person who believes people have a soul separate from their body, which if you were of the hard atheist class you would not believe that.

    (Returning to normal voice) After having written that I realize I'm making an error, although I don't know the name for it but let's call it "overreaching."

    Atheism is the condition where someone has no belief in any supernatural god or gods. It does not apply to any other concept which may be metaphysical or be supernatural in nature.

    Thus now, in order to understand what you think - and since I now realize it has nothing to do with atheism - it is reasonable to answer either way, I ask this question:

    Do you believe human beings have a "soul" in that there is some part of their consciousness that is separate from their body?

    If you do believe this, do you believe it is possible some part, or all, of this soul, survives the death of the body it was formerly part of?
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    Re: Nothing Happens To You

    Post by pinback »

    Tdarcos wrote:Do you believe human beings have a "soul" in that there is some part of their consciousness that is separate from their body?
    No, and in fact, that is precisely the exact opposite of what is being discussed here.
    If you do believe this, do you believe it is possible some part, or all, of this soul, survives the death of the body it was formerly part of?
    On the contrary, it is YOU, sir, who believes in a self, or a soul, separate from their body. That which your body, your thoughts and feelings, your experiences somehow "belong to." That which, in your description, "exists somewhere between your eyes and ears." I submit that it is not me, but YOU who believes in a soul, which came into existence at your "birth", and which will cease to be at the time of your body's death!

    J'ACCUSE!
    I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

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    Re: Nothing Happens To You

    Post by Tdarcos »

    pinback wrote: On the contrary, it is YOU, sir, who believes in a self, or a soul, separate from their body.
    No, I do not, and your quote even proves it.
    That which your body, your thoughts and feelings, your experiences somehow "belong to." That which, in your description, "exists somewhere between your eyes and ears."
    Exactly, to the best part of my ability, this is the place my consciousness resides. Just as much if you ask where my blood resides, it's in various veins and capillaries all over the place.
    I submit that it is not me, but YOU who believes in a soul, which came into existence at your "birth", and which will cease to be at the time of your body's death!

    J'ACCUSE!
    Nope, doesn't work that way. Your computer is running an application program of some kind called a "web browser" same as, say, you were running a dial-up program 25 years ago to call a bulletin board. Now, this program is not sentient but if it were and you asked it where it was in your computer it could probably give some identification at a place in the processor or maybe in the memory chips. It would have come from some storage device. And each time it was loaded if it has no external storage or if loaded without a reminence data base it would have no memory of what was before.

    That, however is not what we are and we do not really know how we got here. We have no evidence one way or another. A soul, by any ordinary definition is a consciousness having some trans-body existence, like a copy of a program on disc. A consciousness that dies with the body is not a "soul."
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    Re: Nothing Happens To You

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    Tdarcos wrote:Exactly, to the best part of my ability, this is the place my consciousness resides.
    This has never, and will never, be found. Current neuroscience is as clear on this as the oldest, deadest Zen masters.

    Your words are being read, and there is just this, the sight of a computer screen, the squiggles of the words, the sound of the dishwasher in the other room. A scratch on the elbow. Thoughts. Feelings. All plainly in evidence. What is not plainly in evidence is the individual to whom the experience is occurring.

    There is the thought "it's happening to me, obviously!" But that too is just a thought, in the vast cloud of experience, being experienced by nothing. It's an object without a subject.

    Sit quietly, and I'll bet you find the same thing over there. Are there two things there -- the experience and the experiencer?

    Or just what is?

    Don't answer that. (He's going to answer that.)
    I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

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    Re: Nothing Happens To You

    Post by Tdarcos »

    pinback wrote:Don't answer that. (He's going to answer that.)
    You keep using this so much have you considered making it your new tag line?
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    Post by pinback »

    I don't know, do you think I should?

    Don't answer that.
    I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

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    Post by Tdarcos »

    pinback wrote:I don't know, do you think I should?

    Don't answer that.
    (Voice of Homer Simpson) Must... resist... making... reply....
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