The Buddha says “See them, floundering in their sense of mine, like fish in the puddles of a dried-up stream — and, seeing this, live with no mine, not forming attachment for states of becoming.”
Thinkers like De Mello and Tolle interpret this as not attaching happiness to anything – no person, no thing, no outcome. By dropping this “I will be happy if” mentality we actually become happy – our default state.
How do they get there. Lets break it down. “See them, floundering in their sense of mine”. This is how most of us were bought it. To see “this car is mine, that man is mine” or “I will feel happy when that car is mine, I will feel happy when that man is mine”.
If we do achieve these things then we live in constant fear that we might lose those things that are “mine”. “What if I lose my job and can’t afford the car, what if my husband leaves me?”
And so we flounder (and writhe uncomfortably) as we try to achieve and protect what is “mine”. Escape it by living “with no mine”. They are things which you have, sure, but don’t make them in your mind into things without which you cannot be happy.
“… not forming attachments to states of becoming” – again, basically, don’t attach happiness to future things. Aim for them, work towards them with passion, but do not create a fiction in your mind that you can only be happy when they come to be.
The happiness you then feel is not the one we think we know because we bought something new, got a promotion at work or whatever else. This default state is true happiness feels much more intense than the temporary thrill of having got something.
I’ve witnessed this once and experienced it twice. Both times I completely missed what it really was. I’m calling it bliss here which is a totally inadequate word for the feeling but perhaps as close as language can take us!
Witnessing bliss … and missing it!
The witness time was as a teenager watching the film Clockwise. John Cleese plays the title roll of someone who is trying to get to a presentation to give a speech but encounters one disaster after another.
Towards the end he comes to the realisation that he won’t make it in time and says “It’s not the despair … I can take the despair. It’s the hope I can’t stand.” and then goes off to lie in a ditch.
There, by the side of the road, he becomes deeply relaxed and is able to reflect on life as an observer, For a brief moment he is close to enlightenment – understanding the illusion (how important it is to get to the meeting) and reality (that life will go on anyway).
I, like so many others, understood that feeling even in my teens. That moment you know that what you wanted has drifted out of your reach and for whatever reason won’t drift back again. The hope is extinguished and your experience relief.
I didn’t understand it at all back then. Like so many people do I replaced it with another hope or desire fast enough and moved on as society had taught me to do.
Feeling bliss … and not understanding what it was
Many years later I was building up my own business when I was hit by two unexpected bills so large that there was no way I would be able to pay them. After two years of struggle and hard grind I knew I was effectively bankrupt and about to lose all I had.
I lay on a bench in the kitchen for two days in absolute bliss. My decade of financial juggling and a hard slog to keep my head above water was over and the relief felt enormous.
I use the word ‘bliss’ because that is the closest way to describe it and at the same time hopelessly inadequate. It was an experience that cannot be put into words.
I realise now what I was experiencing was the falling away of illusion. I had always constantly worried what people thought of me, now it did not matter – I could not change it.
I wanted to be financially comfortable to get all those ‘things’ society says we need. Not super-rich but bloody comfortable. That would not happen now.
Dr Wayne Dyer said that when you stop desiring things good things start happening to you. Perhaps. On the third day I was contacted by two clients with large contracts and I returned to the illusion! Was that a good thing to happen? Not sure.
Being in the now and not realising it can happen anytime
My final bliss experience happened at dawn. I had purchased a small farmstead not far from where I lived and a neighbour had said how beautiful the dawn was in the area. I’ve seen the dawn many times before, be it when I used to work night shifts or overnight driving, but I had a feeling she might be right.
The next day I was up and 4am and sitting on the rickety collection of pallets I called a veranda. The sun gradually rose behind the trees of the garden and then, all of a sudden, its rays pierced through the gaps in the greenery and onto the scrubby grass I called a lawn.
The heat caused steam to rise from the dew sodden ground, swirling in patterns as it rose hit different patches of sunlight.
For me the beauty was staggering and I sat there for at least two hours just experiencing each moment as it happened. In my mind there was no future on my mind so nothing to worry about. There was no past to fret over. Just each moment happening one after another.
This is what Eckhart Tolle refers to in his book The Power of Now. Take action to try and shape your future but don’t spend your time worrying about it. Why feel bad about the past when you cannot change it?
Again – it was so much more than bliss but bliss is the only work that even comes vaguely close.
Again – I had shed the illusion (worrying about what society says is important and how I was matching up to that) and was just seeing reality.
When the heat of the day was starting to build I picked up my tea mug and went back to work. In my ignorance I felt that I needed that staggering beauty to lose myself and although I got up for many more sunrises none ever matched the first.
Pulling threads together
I am, or I was, the kind of person who needs someone to hold up a sign with very clear explanations. Only after I started reading De Mello and Tolle did those experiences make sense.
Because of them I can understand why it is said that “Those who know do not speak and those who speak do not know“. I could try and explain how I felt that morning to you for the rest of my life and not be able to – just as someone cannot explain the colour green to a person who is, and has always been, blind.
But if you had been there and experienced the same as I did you would instantly know, and also know that you would not be able to explain it in words. Odd.
I may be enlightened or I may be just a little enlightened but putting what I have learnt together has made a world of difference to my everyday life.
I’m no longer frustrated when waiting for the lift or stuck in traffic. Why should I be? Its an ideal time to observe, both myself and the surroundings. If I am going to be late then I am going to be late. The lift isn’t going to speed up and the traffic is not going to suddenly part just because I’m freaked out about not getting somewhere on time.
I am very anal about leaving in plenty of time for meetings/trains/planes. Chilling out isn’t about not caring if you are on time or not. But when circumstances take shape fretting won’t help.
And if I wasn’t going to a meeting, perhaps just to do some shopping, well like I said these are all great times to observe. Before you know it you will be seeing so much you’ll want the next lights to turn red!