If you have been observing your mind closely by now it would be evident to you that what we sense is our creation, a creation of something out of “just”, nothing, from what we “just” saw. It is like lighting a fire, where there was none before.
These creations of ours makes us different. Likewise we create a self for us.
If we look into these creations we will see that the medium in which it exits is nothing. It is neither a vacuum nor not a vacuum. It is like the fire before the fire and the fire after the fire. This is what is referred to as emptiness.
And so, what was before the fire is emptiness. And because it is created, without substance, on emptiness, what is created is also emptiness. So if emptiness is emptiness for all of us, then it can be, and it is our connection to one another, the unhindered conduit that connect us all and the universe. This is in fact consciousness in a purer form than what resulted in our creations. This is the energy that is referred to in Qi Gong (Chi Gong) by the Chinese.
Qi Gong Means cultivating energy. The Chinese word Qi (Chi) means life force or vital-energy that flows through all things in the universe. The word Gong means a skill that is cultivated through steady practice. It involves understanding and communicating with the energy that makes your body, your mind and your inner mind or soul or spirit. You cultivate your spirit to reach emptiness. It is considered the goal of the practice. And in the empty state you realize the Tao. Tao means way or path. It is both the source of, and the force behind, everything that exists. This is Taoism. It is enlightened awareness. It is also the way or path to nirvana in Buddhism
We are consciously and sub-consciously programmed to repel what we do not like, what we are averse to, what we hate, and to repel anything that is contrary to our views. Communication becomes difficult if we are not receptive to what we sense. One way to break down barriers is to reach out to the other person and embrace the other person as us - I am you. And then you begin to think as one and see as one. Then you lose your natural resistance to reception.
Exponents of Chinese martial arts, like the shaolin monks, use this method to manipulate the opponents’ energy to repel attacks without striking a single blow. So you see, or may have seen, encounters in which the two adversaries dance more than they strike each other, due to forces of energy that are projected by one on the other.
A simple test can show you what can be possible for you. Let us use a cold water shower for this rather than play with fire. Think of taking a cold water shower, especially in the winter and you shudder. You are programmed to repel, to resist. It finds resistance within you, from knowledge you have of it. It is both in your conscious and sub-conscious self. If you like you can take the shower and see what it feels like. Even a cold shower on a normal day could give you the perception of colder water than it is.
Now lets try the same thing, but this time you take a deep slow breath as you take the shower. You go in with your mind and embrace the water, close your eyes, breathe in the water, imagine you are drawing the energy out of the water, and imagine you are the water. When you do this you will find that the water is not at all cold. After you do this for a few minutes you may not even want to turn on the warm water. You have broken down the resistance that was within you, ingrained deep within you and you became the water.
Due to your perception of cold for what you know it to be - cold, success in this test may not come that easily to you because despite what you tell yourself you will still be bracing yourself for the cold. And then it does not work. Remember you need to let go. Be the water.
The same applies to communication. More than 60% of what we communicate is done through a language other than the words spoken.
Mind must be exhibited through the body and mind must be exhibited through speech. Come altogether in unison, in unity of energy, and we have the ability to convey our message. This is divine communication. And then we have divine speech.
When that happens we have no confusion, no scattered energy. Our energy is clear. When we have scattered energy, as a result of scattered thoughts or vice-versa, we are in-congruent in speech and body language. That is when we see us saying yes but shaking our heads no, that is when we have our foot pointed to the door to get out as fast as possible whilst being in the room talking to someone. That is when we display a lot of other telltale gestures that let off the fact that we don’t speak what we mean, such as a pause, the biting of lip, the eye-contact or no eye-contact depending on the circumstance, the fluttering eyelids, and so on. That is when we give out mixed signals.
Scattered thoughts can be seen on all those who walk past us. Just do it as a fun exercise. Watch people as they walk by. See their faces, the expressions. See how discursive the minds are, which you can see when expressions change, the gaze is lifted and so on, when the mind jumps from one to another, perhaps from home to the office to the child in school. Then you see some holding their gaze intently which is when the functional mind is at work – trying to solve a problem. So very soon you will begin to read into people.
This is mindfulness. Mindfulness is all the more easy if you use this simple trick of being one with your environment, embracing all of it, becoming one with it, grounding yourself through the base of your spin and through your feet to the ground you walk. All is in one and one is in all. You are all of it and it is in you. Then you have awareness, what is referred to as bare awareness – acute awareness of your 6 senses.
What we are usually taught of mindfulness is to follow our every action or perhaps the opposite of it. It is not fun. It does not come naturally to us. And it does not make us rid ourselves of the “I” that we have in us because behind all of it lies the self, saying I am doing this and that. So unless we are in some meditation retreat and put in a sort of sterile environment it becomes a difficult practice. Since it is an effort we usually forget all about it now and again.
Some of us, I know for a fact, wear watches that gives out a beep that brings us back to mindfulness, or what we think is mindfulness. But this soon wears off and we begin not to hear the beep.
And, then you will also begin discover soon that the greatest noise is made by yourself, it comes from your head, something like tinnitus.
Tinnitus is the perception of sound within our ear when no external sound is present. It is also called the ringing of ears. It happens due to a variety of reasons, for instance from physiological disorders like ear disorders, or neurological disorders such as from head injuries, or metabolic disorders such as from thyroid gland diseases, or psychiatric disorders like depression and anxiety and others like stress. But the sound I refer to is one which you hear from none of the above.
If you start looking into the origins of this sound you will find that it happens from your working mind. Although we may not be thinking of anything our mind is. And our mind thinks of many things at the same time. Just keeping ourselves within our body needs thinking. Sense of security needs thinking. Having your antenna attuned to the world to detect danger needs thinking. Feeling warm or cold needs thinking. This is the subconscious.
When we are in the bus or train holding the handrail with one hand and the newspaper on the other or browsing on our mobile phone we hold the handrail effortlessly and apparently without thought. But it is not so, the hand held firmly clasped has a thought process behind it, one that is bent on preserving you.
Unless your self preservation is threatened by something else that takes away attention, your attention remains non-distracted, firmly clasped, at just the right amount of effort, as determined by your (sub) consciousness so you are held firm and you don’t tire easily. So sometimes when the bus lunges there is a tendency for you to re-calibrate the effort required, and when it is a split second late you are then jolted to attention, your functional mind takes over to adjust yourself. There are two types of mind involved here, the resultant action mind that re-calibrate and the functional mind that exerts and extra clasp.
Then there are times when we are just silent. There is nothing. We have all experienced such moments. Think back and see what happened – when the world stood still for us. It has to be a moment, some moment that brings the ego to its knees. When time stops. When all phenomena – all that we think comes to a halt. At that moment most of our scattered thoughts come home to naught. But of course consciousness remains firmly entrenched in the body, for if it was not so we would not be here in the first place.
Sleep over something and you have the answer. What happens is a concatenation of ideas. It is a concept found in Western Philosophy. Simply put, things link together like the links of a chain, from the Latin catena for chain and con for linking. In Buddhist teachings this is explained simply through “emptiness” and attachment.
If you detach yourself from the object of your adoration or the one that torments you, the object that has besieged your mind for many hours, then things begin to happen magically. We see things we never saw before. Then we have clarity of mind that translates in to clarity in speech. With this clarity we can speak with lucidity. It is effusive, comes easily, from within. It is a wonderful thing, a wonderful feeling. The reason for this is that you have detached yourself from the object.
And so communication must have clarity, must be lucid, and must be concise. In order to do that we need unity in body, speech and mind. We cannot be saying something to someone and thinking of other things at the same time. We cannot be speaking of something and wondering at the same time if I am doing it right. Multitasking was not intended to mean scattered thinking, discursive thinking – jumping from one to another, although in practice that is what happens and so we become separated from what we speak about.
When you have mental clarity you can decide in which order you want to take things in your mind, at your command, at your will. You are not led like the ox but you lead. You decide what you wish to convey, and how you wish to convey it.
When you hold your audience in your spell you don’t need notes to make your point. You take your notes from the faces you see. You reach out to them and feel what they feel. You don’t speak you communicate. Your listeners will hang on your every word. You have then in your spell.
So then when all things come together it is the unity of body, speech and mind, unity of samboghakaya, unity in samboghakaya. Samboghakaya is our radiating body that emanates from within the material body, and what emanates from the being that lies behind – that is our wisdom. It feels like and is freedom, emancipation from the hold of our ego, just like a lid that’s taken off the top of your head. Freedom is the one word that comes to mind to describe these moments.
The experience of Samboghakaya, according to Francessca Freemantle the author of Luminous Emptiness, is to perceive the world directly and nakedly, welcoming whatever happens without preconceptions. Sense perceptions become clearer and sharper and more colorful. The world is recognized as sacred and magical and full of wonder. It contains all the vitality and passions of the emotions free of confusion that brings misery and pain.
What you project outwards, you project 100% and that 100% is the 100% of you and the nature of the object. This is divine communication.
When we have such unity we have a presence, we have a glow, and we have an aura, to which people automatically respond.
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