Love is not a thing

Lately, during my practice of TM, Transcendental Meditation, I would sit for long times in a pleasant state of powerful relaxation.

It was both a presence, a strong, very strong presence of power that was like around me and yet filling me in every fiber, and a state of total relaxation and hanging loose. I was hanging loose in an embrace of power, a power that held me from behind, like truly an embrace. Some essence was holding me, like a man sometimes stands behind a woman with his arms around her. I cannot say it was someone, but it was a presence. A power.

And being held within that power, I could sit up for long times, feeling pleasantly relaxed, as if all the weight and responsibility of sitting straight and not sagging was left to that presence, and I could chill and I could hang loose, and it was a most pleasant and amusing state of being. I felt both held and free. Free to move, yet completely still. It really was a pleasure.

After some days of sitting in this state of embraced relaxation, there was a small and tiny moment, when it was as if I was lifted, only a millimeter, I was lifted straight up and it felt like a soft silk cloth slid of my hips. A soft silk cloth just fell away as I was lifted up for a millimeter, and at the same time, this silk cloth was me.

I fell away.

Not really falling like in some sky dive or rollercoaster downhill, but falling like a feather would fall from a table. Softly, gently, only for a fraction of a second, being lifted only a millimeter.

And gently, this cloth, this form slid from me, and fell away.

And what was revealed, was a full and swirling black ocean of nothingness.

There really was nothing. And that nothingness was real. It was not just like ‘oh nothing was there’. There was something there, there was the most alive and convincing presence, a total and living, moving, swirling presence of nothingness.

There was no form, no thing, there was nothing, but it was alive.

And this cloth, this me that fell like a feather from a table, was just a cover, it was covering nothingness really. This me was all I could have seen, whilst it was still covering the nothingness, as long as I was looking at myself, but when it dropped away, truth was revealed, and the truth was that this form, this me, was covering a full ocean of nothingness.

And nothingness was black, like an ocean moving in the night, turning within itself, in circles, in spirals, alive, yet there was not a form present. Not anything you could call something.

There was nothing. Really nothing. Nothing was there. A whole lot of powerful moving nothingness.

No form. No identity. No thing.

Just the ocean.

Dark.

Moving.

Present.

In the Heart Sutra, we read that ‘All things are empty (…) in emptiness there is no body (…) there are no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind.’ I think I understand now.

I was reading the most recommendable book at the time by Deepak Chopra, called Quantum Healing, and he was going into quantum reality a bit, along with his excellent medical expertise and his love for the tradition of the Ayurveda, and he was talking about the superstring theory.

This states that the base of the different energies that make up matter, can be seen as a string on a violin. By moving your finger along the string, you produce different vibrations, and each vibration is a superstring generating a certain quantum that (in)forms an aspect of the material world.

He said that we could call the violin in all of its potentiality like the super superstring if you like.

I think that emptiness is something like that. It is creation before it unfolds, reality before it manifests. On a causal level. It is the cradle of creation, it is the ultimate reality and truth of matter, of all ‘things’, this nothingness.

The truth of every thing is not a thing really.

It is an ocean without form, moving, turning powerfully in tai chi circles within itself.

Of course I was amazed, I was shocked, I was totally awakened and shaken by this realization. Underneath the form of me, underneath my being, there was a powerfully present and swirling ocean of nothingness. And I could not see it, because I was covering it up, I was standing in the way, I was blocking the sight of it. I had to let myself go before I could see the underground.

I was amazed. There was nothing, in truth. There was no table, there was no chest of drawers, there was no printer, there was no coffee machine. I sat there for quite some time, for an eternity it seemed, trying to come to terms with what I had experienced. It completely shook my sense of reality. There were no things. There was only full and abundant nothingness.

And today, I was thinking about it some more. It has come to dawn on me that there is an instance in the human soul, that believes in things and that craves for things.

It is fear.

The only thing that needs things is fear.

Fear is addicted to things.

It needs things to live.

That way it can be afraid of this, and it can be afraid of that.

It is the mind.

This, that, oh no, fear!

But when you realize there is no thing, you come to see how deceived you were. How this thing of the fear craving things is only a game, and a harsh, sorry and demanding state of being. It is deception, yet before you realize the nothingness of everything, it is all you know.

You are convinced that there are all these things, and your life consists of fearing all of them. Of your fear clinging to all of them, thriving on all of them.

I believe this is interesting, because so many people have addictions. I have addictions. I have disorders. I have an eating disorder and I am addicted to cigarettes.

But it seems to me that this is precisely the double bind in addiction. You fear what you crave, you crave what you fear. It is the game of ‘the thing’. The thing your fear craves. You are most afraid of another piece of pie and a bowl of ice cream, that cigarette has got all the cancerblack lungs written all over it, and still, it has to be there.

It has to be there, because the fear needs it.

Fear needs things.

That is why I believe it is interesting to see the common ground of the vow of poverty of the Buddhist monk, and the modern trend of minimalism. Striving to own less is like challenging the fear. It is like saying to the fear ‘I know you live on things, but I will give you less to feed on’. It is why modesty is a good practice if you want to lessen the grip fear has on your existence.

It is a human thing, fear. It is the thing of things. It is the thing that is always there with this and that, and then radiating its unsure question as to the acceptance of it. Seducing.

It is what we portray at birthday parties and mother day gatherings. At Christmas and New Year celebrations. At weddings and at funerals. O, there have to be many things. Immediately, you come up with this and that and him and her and then you get very busy making sure everything is there and in place. It is the culture of fear.

And do not refuse the thing. Do not refuse to accept it, with a smile preferably. For the thing is necessary. It should be acknowledged. It should be reified. Otherwise, the ego begins to fear for its life. It needs to seduce you, otherwise it gets upset.

No thing?!?

As long as there is the thing, there can be fear.

So accept the thing, accept the poisoned gift, accept that the thing is there, then fear can smile.

It can stay.

It can stay alive in the human psyche.

What if there is no thing?

What if there are no things?

What is all there is, is an ocean moving and swirling, constantly changing within itself?

What if this were all you knew?

An ocean, that defies any definition.

Where not a thing can be found. Not a shape, not a constant, not one thing that remains.

Not one thing.

So ‘the thing’.

It was questioned by philosophers before, can we know ‘the thing’?

I ask ‘is there really anything like ‘a thing’?’.

I always thought there were lots of things. The whole world was full of things. But I guess now I am not so sure.

What then?

What if things and fear end?

Where will we go?

I believe we will go straight to the energies of love. Straight to compassion, straight to joy, straight to bliss, straight to ecstasy. I think we will enjoy life with all its surprises, all of its movement and change. All its gifts. All the moments, all the presents.

When we no longer cling to things. To the fixed. To our addictions. When we no longer live lives of fear.

I think there is a lot of psychology in the Heart Sutra. I think things are what keeps fear possible, and things are what make up addictions and obsessions. Things keep us fixated, crucified.

And the first thing, and the last thing, that you have to let slide from your lap, that you have to let go, in a state of powerful relaxation perhaps, is you. It seems that you have a form, but that is only the form of the cloth covering nothingness.

When you take away the cloth, the cover, there is no form.

There is no thing, no constant, no identity.

There is an ocean, laughing, enjoying itself.

Playing.

It is a bit like an exhibitionist. He stands there with his hands on his long coat, and you see him. But instead of revealing something (to fear) when he takes away the cover, he disappears. Because he was only a form, he was only an illusion. He was just a cover, just a façade.

Underneath, nothingness.

And speaking of exhibitionists, showing off their ‘thing’, I am reminded of the piece I wrote in this book, called ‘Father Earth?’, where I was trying to argue a bit with patriarchy, and the notion, very present in Lacanian psychoanalysis, of the Phallus, the ‘thing’. Like words are things, and the penis is a thing, and women are on the side of silence and the absence.

And I was trying to argue, from an Eastern point of view, that instead of requiring having a ‘thing’ in order to be able to speak a word, we should value the silence more, and the absence, and the modesty.

Now I see, indeed, this is a race of fear, this is where fear has its word, perhaps not the final one, but this is a race of things.

It is a world of things too, a world of matter.

At least it seems that way, when we observe matter through our senses, made of matter.

Or wait… was there quantum physics?

There is no matter, we are not matter?

What is this delusion, what is this play?

Is it just a world of fear, is it just a plain of fear, is it just a state of fear? Is it a reality of fear?

I think we need sense, we need Buddhism, we need the East, we need meditation, love and energy. Because how else are we gonna survive these next few decades, this century, how else can we thrive for the millennia to come?

Not by thriving on ever more things I believe, not by playing the craving game of ego but by challenging it.

By modesty, by simplicity, by wisdom and compassion, and a smile perhaps, not a triumphant smile of fear, but a simple smile of understanding and a wink to nothingness, when we have seen through ourselves and recognized its play.

We can survive only on the other side of fear.

We can survive only in love, in compassion and in joy.

There’s the energy, there is the dharma, and there is truth.

So please, I invite you, learn to do with fewer things.

And remember, love is not a thing.

You are not a thing.

Your wife is not a thing.

Your dog is not a thing.

The jungle is not a thing.

God is not a thing.

The Earth is not a thing.

Life is not a thing.

Emptiness, all there is.

Every thing an illusion.

Maya.

Samsara.

This world is suffering and illusion.

If you buy the Buddha.