Sensations are also temporary appearances of awareness. For purposes of Living Realization, sensations are placed into two categories: (1) the five senses and (2) physical sensations.
In the most rudimentary sense, we experience the physical world through touching, tasting, seeing, hearing, and smelling. We tend to overemphasize thinking about sensory experience and underemphasize sense perception itself. For example, we tend to think about the weather with ideas such as, “Today is a wet, dreary day,” or “I hope tomorrow will be sunny,” rather than simply feeling the present sensory experience directly in whatever way that is appearing, either as the actual wetness of rain falling on our faces or the actual heat of the sun warming our bodies. To know a sunny day directly is to experience the heat and the light of the sun directly rather than through the label, “This is a sunny day.” The label is, at best, a representation. It is a thought. The actual warmth and light of the sun is not conceptual. In Living Realization, we are not saying that you shouldn’t think about the weather. We are simply pointing to the obvious fact that all appearances — including all thoughts and sensations — are equal appearances of awareness. In recognizing awareness as our real identity, the tendency to identify exclusively with mental labels relaxes.
We can think about water all we want, and even write a book about it, but to know water directly is to put our hands in it and feel its wetness. The mental label “water” will never provide that direct experience. We can never drink the idea, “Water.” A label will never quench our thirst. The same is true for every aspect of our world. To know tapioca pudding is to feel its texture in our mouths and taste its sweet flavor as it slides effortlessly down our throats. Reading the recipe for tapioca pudding or thinking about pudding will never provide that direct experiencing. The same is true for Living Realization. The phrase “Living Realization” is just a concept, as are words like “non-duality, “enlightenment,” and “spiritual awakening.” But when we drop the concept and simply look at our present reality, the way it is really happening, we see that what we are in the deepest sense is a vast, loving, spacious awareness and that all appearances seamlessly appear and disappear within awareness. The direct experiencing of that, without heavy reliance on concepts, reveals what the phrase “Living Realization” is really pointing to. It is pointing to the simple fact that what you are is boundless, timeless space itself, recognizing itself equally as every appearance, every thought, every emotion, every sensation, and every experience.
The simulated self stays in place through looking at life only through a conceptual veil. By living only through these labels, we fragment life into separate occurrences: “I love this view from the mountaintop;” “I don’t like the sound of the car alarm going off;” and “the feel of this bug crawling up my leg is really ‘bugging’ me.” These labels create and maintain a false center (i.e., the simulated self) that is judging each and every sensory experience. It is all about “me” and whether life is giving “me” the experience I think I need or want in order to be a fulfilled separate self. This self is either for or against everything it sees, touches, tastes, hears, and smells. We live through stories of what sensory experiences mean for “me,” rather than through the bare naked, actual sensory experiencing itself.
It is very easy to create a story about how present physical sensations such as pain or discomfort should not be happening or how we have been suffering with pain or discomfort for a long time. In this way, we suffer. We “carry over” sensations through time. But time is thought. And all thought is an appearance of awareness. So carrying over sensations through time just means that we overemphasize our stories about the sensations. The resistance created through that storytelling strengthens the time-bound simulated self that is seeking future release. Conversely, this simulated self engages in a game of maintaining or recreating pleasurable sensations, whether it is the feel of a massage, comfort from food, the high from spiritual experiences, or the egoic boost from receiving praise and acknowledgment.
The spiritual search is a search for something more, for the next moment. It is a chase after future pleasure or release and an avoidance of present pain or discomfort. The simulated self is chained to this duality of pleasure v. pain — this movement of chasing pleasure and avoiding pain.
As sensory experiences such as pleasure and pain are seen as nothing more than movements within present awareness itself, they are allowed to appear and disappear naturally. They are no longer being focused on and carried over into the story of self that lives in time. Our true identity is revealed in this seeing. Everything is naturally allowed, both pleasure and pain, both the beautiful view from the mountaintop and the annoying sound of the car alarm. Awareness simply has no agenda to resist. It naturally accepts what appears because the appearance itself is not separate from that space that sees it. Sensations are not separate from awareness. Awareness does not move toward or away from any sensation. In this seeing, the constant movements of chasing pleasure and avoiding pain tend to relax on their own.
The simulated self is not just a thought-based, time-bound story. It is also not just emotional in nature. It is physical. The self-contraction is the tense, seemingly solid, physical energy knot within the body that creates a real sense of separation between “me” and the rest of life. The self-contraction is located in any number of areas including the stomach, chest, throat, behind the eyes, and even in parts of the head. The knot may be in more than one area simultaneously.
The self-contraction, as real as it seems, is also just a temporary appearance of awareness. It feels permanent only because we have assumed all our lives that we are in fact separate selves. Until we hear the invitation to investigate whether this contraction is our real identity, we simply assume that it is. Take a moment now and investigate this assumption. Find the physical contraction(s) in the body. Where is the dense energy located? Where does it feel like there is a solid, separate you? Do you see that the self-contraction, regardless of where it is, appears within awareness? Your real identity is that which is awake to the contraction. If you can find the contraction as an appearance, it must not be you. It must be an appearance in what you are.
No amount of effort or resistance against the contraction will diminish the contraction. The contraction is the energy of separation and resistance itself. Resistance cannot eradicate resistance. Only the simulated self would seek to be rid of the contraction anyway.
The only practice here is to recognize present, spacious awareness and to notice that space gently surrounds and permeates the contraction. Remember that the invitation here is never to manipulate an appearance. The contraction, like all appearances, is “of awareness.” There is actually no separation between awareness and the contraction. It’s all energy in different forms. In simply recognizing awareness, it is revealed that the contraction is not you. That seeing reveals your real identity as awareness itself. The contraction tends to fall away effortlessly and naturally in that seeing.
Remember, keep it simple! Above all else, recognize present awareness right now. Don’t move to manipulate sensations. See that sensations are not separate from awareness.