This isn’t how we usually go about things, in case
you hadn’t noticed. We usually try to get ground
under our feet. It’s as if you were in a spaceship going
to the moon, and you looked back at this tiny planet
Earth and realized that things were vaster than any
mind could conceive and you just couldn’t handle it,
so you started worrying about what you were going to
have for lunch. There you are in outer space with this
sense of the world being so vast, and then you bring
it all down into this very tiny world of worrying about
what’s for lunch: hamburgers or hot dogs. We do this
all the time.
In “Examine the nature of unborn awareness,” ex-
amineis an interesting word. It’s not a matter of look-
ing and seeing—“Now I’ve got it!”—but a process of
examination and contemplation that leads into being
able to relax with insecurity or edginess or restless-
ness. Much joy comes from that.
“Examine the nature of unborn awareness.” Sim-
ply examine the nature of the one who has insight—
contemplate that. We could question this solid iden-
tity that we have, this sense of a person frozen in time
and space, this monolithic ME. In sitting practice,
saying “thinking” with a soft touch introduces a ques-
tion mark about who is doing all this thinking. Who’s
churning out what? What’s happening to whom?
Who am I that’s thinking or that’s labeling thinking or
that’s going back to the breath or hurting or wishing
lunch would happen soon?
22 Pulling Out the Rug