The point is to consciously notice those gaps between the thoughts

I began to see that the important thing, actually, was to stop thinking. But that, I found, was a real challenge for me. My whole world was created through thinking. I thought all the time. It seemed as though I couldn’t stop thinking, in fact. I wanted to figure everything out, know about everything, have it all nicely analysed ― all the questions answered and all the problems solved ― and I felt very ill at ease with vagueness or any sense of uncertainty or doubt. The scriptures refer to the greed type, the hatred type, the doubting type, and the ignorant type. I could see that, ‘Well, I’m certainly greedy enough, and I certainly have enough hatred and anger, but doubt is an obsession of my mind.’ I am a sceptic and there is nothing I can do about it. I tried to believe in Christianity by willing myself to do it, but couldn’t.

In Zen they use the koan method as a way of nonplussing the thinking mind so that it stops in mid-air, so to speak. I started reading books on developing doubt and began to have moments when I actually recognized non-thinking as a reality; they were like gaps between the thoughts. Now, the nature of thought is such that one thought always connects to another. Thinking about thinking means you are still thinking. And thinking about not thinking is still thinking; it’s a catch-22 thing, so you can’t win on that level. All the planning you do to stop thinking ― and knowing that you should stop thinking ― is still thinking! So it is a question of recognizing rather than thinking, of getting to the point where your mind goes towards stillness; and making that a really conscious moment so that it isn’t just a flash that goes unnoticed. I had these Charles Luk books on the hwa-tou ― on asking questions like ‘Who am I?’ ― and I started developing that. I then began to recognize where the thinking mind stops.
When you ask yourself a question, there is a gap before the mind starts trying to answer it. The point is to consciously notice those gaps between the thoughts ― before they connect, before the thought process starts again.
I found that developing that was very helpful, and I had some success in recognizing how thinking arises and ceases in consciousness. Previously I had regarded consciousness and thinking as the same thing. It seemed that they were bound together so tightly that there was no differentiation. But in this recognition of the gaps between thoughts I realized I was conscious yet there was no thought. From here I began to notice the cosmic sound ― the background sound ― and to recognize more and more a very natural state of being. Then I had perspective on my ego and was able to see how I created myself with thoughts, how I identified the body and emotional habits as ‘myself’.
Over the years I have been developing this way of just seeing what the ego is. When I become ‘Ajahn Sumedho’ and operate from the ego, I am empowering something which is really not alive; it is just perceptions and habits that I have acquired. That is why, I think, as you get older the ego becomes boring. You get fed up with yourself.
You have lived with the ego for so long ― and it just says the same things all the time.
I see how easily I am upset on the ego level, how I can get really angry if somebody insults me, threatens me or criticizes something that is very sacred to me, something that I have invested a lot of interest in. I can feel outraged and upset by all kinds of things. People might say, ‘You don’t have to be a monk, you know. That’s the old fashioned way,’ and I could react to that. A combination of thinking and emotion can develop around the sense of oneself. And in monastic life where you are living with others all the time, you find very childish emotions coming up ― even when you are head of a community!

There is, however, this perspective on emptiness which does not depend on closing your eyes and shutting out the world. It is a natural state that we all have right now but maybe haven’t recognized and don’t know. Once that recognition comes about, however, then that to me is the path. And the rest is like they say ‘the kamma[1] ripening’.
**
So, in the who-am-I type of questioning, one is not trying to define oneself, but simply noticing the cessation of thought at that moment, just that nonplussed moment, that gap where thinking does not operate. More and more then there is this sense of stillness and silence in awareness.
*
But any question will stop the wandering mind. What is the answer to ‘Who am I?’ If you ask yourself something like that, there will be a gap, a space, where you are not thinking. So you deliberately ask yourself a question and then consciously note the absence of thought. I found this a very useful method because of my sceptical nature; I used the sceptical tendency within myself as a skilful means ― and began to recognize infinite space.

Space is around us all the time, just visually. But observe how you have to withdraw your attention from the things in the space in order to become aware of it. This was a discovery to me. I would think, ‘Of course there’s space!’ but never really allow myself to be fully spacious; I just took it for granted. Then I asked myself, ‘What if I get rid of everything? What if I get rid of the people in the room, then the room itself, then the house, the trees, the world, and . . ? But that is annihilation! Or is space that which allows everything to be?’ The space in this room is an important thing, isn’t it? We wouldn’t be able to use it if there were no space in it. One also begins to realize that by withdrawing one’s fascination for people and objects, space has no boundary. Where does space end in terms of now? And consciousness ― where does that end?

Consciousness is a big subject these days, and there are a lot of theories about it, but few people in the Western world seem to quite know what it is. We are, of course, all conscious at this moment; it is a natural state, not an artificial one, so we don’t create it. It isn’t male or female or anything other than consciousness. And it doesn’t have any boundaries to it. We do, however, create things in consciousness, like thoughts, and we attach to those thoughts and those emotions and create ourselves into ‘I am Ajahn Sumedho!’ That is a condition I create. Consciousness combined with ‘Ajahn Sumedho’ then results in the interpretation of experience from this person called ‘Ajahn Sumedho’ ― ‘my life, my things, my way, my opinions . . .’ Now, with awareness we notice that the ego (sakkayaditthi) depends on thinking and attachment to memory, names, ideas and views, and that if we stop thinking, consciousness is still here and that it is a state of intelligence. Consciousness without thinking is not a dull state; we do not go into a trance when we are aware but not thinking; we do not become zombies when in awareness. Awareness is very bright, in fact; consciousness is light and there is intelligence in it; and it doesn’t seem to have any boundary to it. Infinite consciousness, then, is ― ‘like this’, no-thing-ness.
*
So from zero things manifest. In experience we are conscious beings. We don’t create consciousness. When we are born, the experience of consciousness is natural to the state of birth, to having a body. We do, however, create many of the things in consciousness. Memories, passions, emotions and thoughts are acquired after birth; they are the habits and ways of thinking that we develop. But in emptiness you actually go back to pure consciousness before you create yourself as anything. There is this pure presence of knowing and consciousness. Try to recognize that. You can’t find it in a form to grasp, but you can trust it; you can trust being the awareness. When you see yourself as ‘somebody trying to become aware’, you are creating yourself again. What I am talking about is more a sense of relaxing, opening, receiving, than trying to attain. Pure consciousness is not an attainment; you can’t get it; you can only be it. Recognize ‘it is like this’. It is natural and being at ease. You feel relaxed and at home here. All the problems of being a separate person, a personality, drop away here. So, as you begin to explore and investigate this, you will find the way out of suffering.
*
But the whole Buddhist ethos is around this sense of awakening. The word ‘Buddha’ itself means ‘awakened’; and that is significant because it is not that difficult; it is not like developing psychic powers or special abilities. That attitude of ‘I am not awakened but will be if I practise’ is often the modus operandum that we start with, but if we don’t see beneath that ― if we don’t get behind that position ― then we are stuck with it, and no matter what technique we experience or great teacher we come across in our lives, if that basic delusion is never challenged, we will always be under its limitation ― even with the very best teacher or the best technique. So contemplate ‘I am’, just this sense of ‘I am somebody’, just the thought ‘I am’ before you apply any identity to it. We all have this sense of ‘I am here and now’, this presence. But then we add to that ― ‘I am Ajahn Sumedho’ ― and then the limitation is there. I am now a form, a person, a position. There is this sense of ‘I am this body’, and this is binding oneself into the identity and limitation of a particular body ― ‘I am a Buddhist monk’, ‘I am an American’, ‘I am . . .’ whatever, good or bad, high or low.
How do I put that way of thinking ― that sense of ‘I am’ with the limitation of ‘I am Ajahn Sumedho’ ― into the context of awareness? I have created a form, haven’t I? ‘I am Ajahn Sumedho’ is a creation; it is a thought-formation. Everybody says, ‘You are Ajahn Sumedho,’ and I generally refer to myself as Ajahn Sumedho ― so it is obviously right! And it works like that on a conventional level, in conventional society, in the formed world. But is it really true? Is that what I really am? To reflect in this way allows me to be aware of myself thinking this.

I have practised over many years just listening to myself saying ‘I am Ajahn Sumedho’ and seeing that this is a form I create, a habit-formation. So, on the intellectual level I can say it is all empty and I am not really Ajahn Sumedho; I can see that Ajahn Sumedho is a delusion and can go along with the theory of emptiness or non-self. But just going along with the theory is not liberating. The point of the teaching is to awaken to the reality of this moment. And the reality of thinking ‘I am Ajahn Sumedho’ is that it is a condition arising and ceasing in consciousness.

Consciousness, then, is not something I can claim. It transcends the forms that arise within it. Our emotions, habits, thoughts, memories, and the body itself, is the sensory world that we experience. Our experience is conscious, so we can recognize, we can name, and we can attach to various forms through consciousness. Consciousness therefore has no boundary, no form, but is a fact here and now. Trying to pinpoint consciousness and say what it is exactly ― trying to define it, describe it and show it to someone ― is impossible. We can, however, be aware that consciousness is ‘like this’. When I reflect in this way, my thinking is not defining consciousness or arguing about the nature of it in some abstract way; it is awakening me to the reality of consciousness and the form ‘I am Ajahn Sumedho’ that arises and ceases.

Visual space also I found a good reflection, just contemplating the space in this room. Can you say that the space in this room is somehow different from the space outside the room? The room itself is in space, isn’t it? The building is in space; the planet is in space; space includes everything and doesn’t have any preferences. Whether things are good, bad, right, wrong, beautiful or ugly ― whatever their quality ― space has no preferences; it is where whatever is formed can appear. Our attention, though, is culturally attuned to judging the forms in space. We also have other uses for the term like ‘I need space’ or ‘this is a good space’ or ‘that’s a bad space’. But actually space doesn’t have any quality to it except spaciousness; it is just that we project perceptions onto it. When we are not thinking but just present and aware, then space has no limit or boundary to it. We put up the boundaries with the walls in this room, don’t we? I say, ‘This space is just this big,’ and that is because the walls are all I am willing to notice. But where does space really end? Where are its limits? The fact is, it just goes on and on, and I can’t see its wholeness. I can recognize its infinity through this awareness, however. So this gives perspective on the forms.
*
Much of your personality is based on fear, and so in awareness where there is no personality belief or self-view, fear ceases. As a personality your happiness depends on whether you are liked or disliked and on conditions being a certain way.

Awareness, on the other hand, is not dependent on conditions being any way. Whatever the conditions are, awareness has the strength to carry them, to support them, and to allow them to be. And as the nature of conditions is to change and cease, there is no permanent condition.
*
I have met people who don’t have a very good self-image, and yet they know who they are ― ‘I’m a Buddhist; I’m a Theravadan.’ People take on identities and that gives them a sense of security. But when those identities fall away, then what are they? Their emotions are conditioned around becoming something, around happiness and suffering, so when they reach this point of emptiness ― or even just get near it ― emotionally it can be very frightening. They want to find a place where they can feel ‘Well, I know what I am now! I know who I am now!’
*
So, what is the reality of consciousness now ― not in terms of concepts, ideas, or doctrines; it isn’t a matter of looking for definitions ― but what is it as a reality right now? When we make God into a patriarchal figure, we get a white-bearded old man up in the sky, but if we don’t personify God or reality, if we don’t create forms but just open ourselves to this present moment and rest in awareness, there is formlessness; and formlessness has no boundary because boundaries are what forms are all about.

Personality, the self-view, always has a boundary, doesn’t it? My personality is a boundary by which I describe myself. My abilities or lack of them, my emotional character, the judgements of how good or bad I am, my identity with a culture, with conditioning , with education, with the things that I have done or haven’t done in my life, with the positions I am in, are all boundaries and forms that are part of my personality. But space and consciousness are not personal. You can’t claim emptiness and say ‘I am this!’ or ‘I am the sound of silence!’ If you do, you have missed the point. Once you claim it, you lose it. The personality ceases in awareness; it no longer operates. But there is still consciousness and there is wisdom, so then I have perspective on the conditions. ‘All conditions are impermanent’ is true; and I am not just going along with the Theravadan party line on this; this is a true statement.

Ajhan Sumedho 

The culture of the genius

 

The "corrupt" condition of the genius occurs in small modern communities (an obsessive theme in Kierkegaard's Journal), that is to say, in a socius which is not in the habit of meeting the out-of-the-ordinary, except in the form of power and in the more de-graded form of the event. In these conditions the out-of-the-ordinary which is hardest to bear, and is thus repressed, is the gen-ius, as he lacks both the immunity enjoyed by power and the air of normality which tradition has conferred on it.

Where there exists a tradition of the genius, as there was in Goethe's Germany, or in some of the Greek cities—"Other peoples have had saints or sages; the Greeks had geniuses," said Nietzsche— the genius becomes himself the "normal out-of-the-ordinary," who is needed by his contemporaries as the mediator between them-selves and a superior order. To have the "culture of the genius" means being able to recognize with joy one who is intangibly superior to you, accepting his appearance as an occasion to be raised above yourself, not discontented that someone else has got there first, but rejoicing that, together with him, you may get there too.

When this culture of the genius exists, when the genius lives not in martyrdom but in jubilation, like a domesticated god, his contemporaries experience a peaceful self-transcendence. What then can be more elevating, in this strict sense, than to be present in the train of Empedocles or at the dinner imagined by Mann in his Lotte in Weimar, where Goethe talks of the being of a mineral?

Marquez has an extraordinary story in which a winged angel (the symbol of the out-of-the-ordinary) falls, during a storm, into a peasant's yard. At first it is adored by the whole village, before becoming an object of curiosity (with the owner of the orchard charging an entry fee), and ending up, void of all content, among the hens in the yard, where in the peasant's mind it belongs on ornithological grounds.

THE PÄLTINIS DIARY
A Paideic Model in Humanist Culture
GABRIEL LIICEANU

Nocturnal Emissions

Cassian studies the interplay of body and morality via the male phenomenon of "noclumal emissions."177 The experience was part of the monk's physical environment, especially for the young, looming larger in significance (and perhaps occurring more frequently) for monks than for nonmonks because of a lack of other sexual release.178 Cassian wrote as a male primarily for other males, and it is no surprise that he took up a topic that was a commonplace of monastic literature.

He was not alone among monastic authors in addressing this issue; such experiences evidently caused anxiety for young monks unsure of their vocations and for older monks despairing of their progress toward perfect chastity.
The issue was not exclusively or originally a monastic one. Classical writers had pondered the moral implications of orgasmic dreams,179 and early Christian writers regularly commented on the question of whether nocturnal ejaculation barred one from receiving the eucharist.180 Writing as bishop, Athanasius sent a letter to a monastic superior urging him to reassure the scrupulous among his flock.181 The monastic writers, like Cassian, were typically interested in in assessing moral responsibility for dreams and emissions,182 while nonmonastic writers were typically more concerned with avoiding scrupulosity about worthiness for communion.183 Cassian goes beyond the usual discussion of whether or not erotic dreams and/or emissions are morally culpable. He uses them as a way into the subcon-scious and unconscious mind to measure the permeation of the grace of chastity.

He is less interested in the phenomenon of nocturnal orgasm itself than in the psychodynamics thought to lie behind it. These provide Cassian with yet another example of the hindrances to perfect intention he explores elsewhere with respect to waking thoughts, images in prayer, and misinterpretation of the Bible.

According to Cassian's teaching, the erotic dreams that are often associated with nocturnal emissions replay experiences and images from past and present encounters and therefore have a moral significance.184 In linking dreams to wak-ing experiences, Cassian is following classical and Christian predecessors;185 Evagrius had provided a typically acute analysis of dreams and their relationship to larger psychological and ascetical issues.186 Cassian notes that although sexually inexperienced monks have dreams of a "simpler" kind than those of monks who have experienced intercourse, such dreams are nonetheless disturbing (Conf.12.7.4). Even certain biblical texts can fuel the juniors' fantasies and are best avoided—a concern also voiced by other monastic writers.187 For more advanced monks, dreams can indicate a perdurance in the unconscious of passions that are no longer active when the monk is awake.188 The proof of real progress in purity, then, is the absence of "illicit images" even in sleep.189 In turn, the link between dreams and nocturnal emissions (for men and, surprisingly, for women) was a commonplace of ancient medical literature.190 Cassian admits that there is disagreement about the relationship between the "deceit of dreams" (fallacia somniorum) and nocturnal emissions. While positing that the actual emissions are typically prompted by dreams, he notes that the dreams themselves can be stimulated by the "abundance" of "humor" seeking release in ejaculation.191 Cassian reflects the divergence between, on the one side, Hippocratic and similar schools that claimed that the "humor" produces the dream, and, on the other side, the tendency of some authors to emphasize the role of somnolent fantasy.192 The ambiguity affects Cassian's use of the word inlusio, which means "illusion" when he applies it to fantasies and "trick" or "humiliation" when he refers to the emission itself.193 Cassian notes that the difference between "natural" and morally culpable emissions can become a point of contention, with some people prone to plead nature when it is actually their own negligence that is to blame for their frequent emissions (Conf. 12.8.2). Even what is "natural" from the standpoint of sinful human nature can be contrary to chastity (Inst. 5.14.3).194 Augustine had written in the Confessions about the ineradicable nature of sexual memories and their ability to compel consent and ejaculation in dreams.195 Cassian argues, however, that even these "ingrained habits" of memory can be lifted from the heart by God's grace. Thus, for the truly chaste, emissions will occur for purely physiological reasons, without the nocturnal fantasies that signalled unresolved passions.196 For them even the experience of penile erection, inevitable while one is asleep, cannot be attributed to concupiscence.197 One has left the scope of physical discipline far behind; only God, through grace, can stand the night watch in the heart (Conf. 12.9-10).
Later, in both Conference 22 and its companion, Conference 23 ("On Sinlessness"), Cassian tries to maintain his ideal of chastity while backing off from the potentially misleading picture of Conferences 12 and 13. The reason for this ac-commodation is probably the pastoral one of helping young monks prone to anxi-ety and despair. Physical, moral, and ascetical perspectives converge in Conference 22 as Cassian analyzes the trap of shame and guilt into which even a well-behaved monk can fall after an emission. The Conference was set up by Germanus' cri de coeur at the end of Conference 21 that ascetical discipline some-times seems to increase rather than decrease the frequency of emissions.198 Cassian invokes a traditional explanation for emissions and "illusions": the devil uses these physical and psychological experiences to discourage the zealous. Cassian attributes to "the Elders" the view that most emissions are attributable not to excessive consumption of food or lack of moral vigilance but to demonic decep-tion.199 He then suggests that the demons use "simple" emissions (i.e., those with-out erotic dreams) to make a monk believe that there was in fact complicity of the will and consequently that he is not worthy to approach the eucharist (Conf.22.6.4).200 The point made in Conference 1 about the diabolical origin of certain kinds of thoughts now gets connected to sexual behavior (Conf. 1.19.3).

The case study Cassian presents in Conference 22, of a zealous monk who has an emission on the eve of every Sunday's eucharist, becomes a parable of monastic transparency. The troubled monk presents his situation to his seniors for discernment, answers their questions fully, and is found morally blameless. When the diagnosis of demonic instigation is made and he returns to regular communion, the "attacks" cease (Conf. 22.6.1-4).

The story is interesting for its psychological tension between shame and reward, but for Cassian the point is twofold. There is the monk's obedience to discernment, especially notable in such a private and embarassing realm. Even more, there is his complete openness, for this monk illustrates the ideal Cassian had evoked in Conference 12:

He is found to be the same at night as in the day, the same in bed as at prayer, the same alone as when surrounded by a crowd of people, he sees nothing in himself in private that he would be embarassed for others to see, nor wants anything detected by the omnipresent Eye [of God] to be concealed from human sight. (Conf. 12.8.5)201

The night, formerly so fearsome, has become like day; God has so profoundly transformed both body and spirit that even the kidneys, identified by ancient writers as the source of sexual potency, have been "possessed" by God (Ps.138 [139]: 11—13).202 This condition, "beyond the natural condition" of human beings, can only be the work of grace (Conf. 12.8.6). Such integrity and consistency of life is another form of the ideal evoked in Conference 9, where Cassian notes that because prayer follows from what precedes it, we should strive for a unified life of virtue (Conf. 9.3.4).

Cassian the Monk
Columba Stewart