Mike Monson's notes on nothing

"I'm realizing that nothing can make me happy.

Which is great, because nothing is something you can always count on."

That's because you really are nothing.

"That's because you really are nothing.
"

Please leave me out of this, thanks.

"Please leave me out of this, thanks. "

Cos you have nothing to do with it?

All insights become useless the instant they are percieved and should be dropped like a hot potato.

Whoever knows that the mind is a fiction and devoid of anything real knows that his own mind neither exists nor doesn't exist.

To see nothing is to perceive the Way, and to understand nothing is to know the Dharma, because seeing is neither seeing nor not seeing and because understanding is neither understanding nor not understanding.

If you use your mind to study reality, you won't understand either your mind or reality. If you study reality without using your mind, you'll understand both.

Bodhidharma

So stay right here, you lucky people
let go and be happy in the natural state
Let your complicated life and everyday confusion alone
and out of quietude, doing nothing, watch the nature of mind.
This piece of advice is from the bottom of my heart:
fully engage in contemplation and understanding is born;
cherish non-attachment and delusion dissolves;
and *forming no agenda at all reality dawns*.
Whatever occurs, that itself is the key,
and without stopping or nourishing it, in an even flow,
freely resting, surrendering to ultimate contemplation,
in naked pristine purity we reach consummation.
---Longchenpa

"So stay right here, you lucky people
let go and be happy in the natural state
Let your complicated life and everyday confusion alone
and out of quietude, doing nothing, watch the nature of mind.
This piece of advice is from the bottom of my heart:
fully engage in contemplation and understanding is born;
cherish non-attachment and delusion dissolves;
and *forming no agenda at all reality dawns*.
Whatever occurs, that itself is the key,
and without stopping or nourishing it, in an even flow,
freely resting, surrendering to ultimate contemplation,
in naked pristine purity we reach consummation.
---Longchenpa"

Right right right.
I'm getting really into "the simplest thing," you know?
In fact, "watching," or "awareness" is starting to seem too complicated.
If I really stay with nothing at all, just doing that creates just the right amount of awareness without even trying. Trying to be aware is doing something, and i think it ends up distorting reality and causing suffering (for me).

brilliant, man! The title of Keith Dowman's translation of the quoted text, which he pulled from another line of Longchenpas poem, is "Old Man Basking in the Sun". Love it! trusting this simplicity is the thread of reality in my life, the source of everything I can point to and say "whooo, this is so much easier- and I didn't do anything, so no danger of getting all puffed up about it." It just *is* how it *is*. Nothing to make happen, yet everything keeps happening- often smoother than I could ever dream of taking credit for! shheesh- sorry to ramble with my jibber jabber!.

"Right right right.
I'm getting really into "the simplest thing," you know?
In fact, "watching," or "awareness" is starting to seem too complicated.
If I really stay with nothing at all, just doing that creates just the right amount of awareness without even trying. Trying to be aware is doing something, and i think it ends up distorting reality and causing suffering (for me).
"

This is great, really great!
No-thing is easily notice when considering that which witnesses the simplist thing. Just notice that, that which witnesses is not the simplist thing.


.

I'm finding that when encountering stress, fear, confusion, anxiety, crisis, normal decision-making, regular life stuff, that when it is met with complete surrendered openness (nothing) that one or more of several things will happen:
1. It is seen that the problem actually isn't a problem at all and it goes away "poof" (this is great, of course)
2. What one is/has been doing to create the problem becomes clear and one stops doing that behavior
3. The solution is seen simultaneously with clearly seeing the problem and whatever action is necessary is taken immediately
4. It is clearly seen that the problem is completely someone else's after all and thus can be dropped ("poof" - gone)
5. It is seen that a solution is not going to present itself just yet and the necessary patience appears to enable one to wait and see and continue surrendering
6. Oneself and life all of a sudden seems hilarious and joyful and all problems seem insignificant at least momentarily.

Congratulations! That's great.

"I'm finding that when encountering stress, fear, confusion, anxiety, crisis, normal decision-making, regular life stuff, that when it is met with complete surrendered openness (nothing) that one or more of several things will happen..."

And how, exactly, are you doing this?

"And how, exactly, are you doing this?"

Hard to explain, and it comes from a certain amount of trial and error (which continues and will continue) and from other times in my life when I did similar things (Krishnamurti study, zen study, Christian devotional practices).
But, basically, I've become convinced that complete openeness and surrender is the key for me right now and that very confidence creates the state of mind.
I am literally doing nothing at all, emptying my mind with complete faith that that is the only response to life that makes sense.
what is left then is something probably like the zen concept of "big mind. "
What surrenders is the "me" that really doesn't exist anyway and that causes all the trouble and creates pain and suffering and distorted perceptions. "me" is stil here though, ready on a moments notice to jump back in and try to control everything.
Try it -- can you surrender and really do nothing at all? The irony is that once you do you have so much energy and clarity that you are more active in the world than ever.

Coming at it from another perspective, the mental process governing things like effort, planning, strategizing and evaluating is not the process that does stuff; rather, it just helps guide and refine the stuff that is already being done by other mental processes. So perhaps a rough outline of how to "do nothing" in a fruitful way might be phrased something like this:

1. recognize that "you" are not responsible for all the stuff your body/mind does;
2. in fact, sometimes "you" might get in the way of the rest of your body/mind doing stuff at its peak level;
3. so, try suspending some or all of the online processes "you" normally do (trying, planning, strategizing, evaluating, etc), without necessarily relinquishing offline processes like setting a very general background intention, and trusting that the rest of the processes will carry out that intention just fine on their own

Of course, this will only be fruitful if you are already thoroughly acquainted with the task at hand. Not trying works great for tying your shoes, and in fact deliberately trying to tie your shoes is likely to just mess you up. But if you don't already know how to tie your shoes, not trying won't magically confer this knowledge upon you.

And, of course, trickily enough... trying to get into the zone is the best way not to get there.

useful link along these lines found at DhO:
thinkingthingsdone.com/signup/Chapter-3-MindNotLife.pdf

"And how, exactly, are you doing this?"

Tom, I wonder about practical questions like this too and I think it's important to try to answer them in a way that helps guide practice. I'm not speaking for Mike's practice here, but perhaps some of the concepts are similar and useful.

I think the sort of stuff Mike is talking about might be similar to "getting in the zone", which you may have already experienced yourself. When one is in the zone (e.g. playing a sport or an instrument, or even just having a great conversation) there is a sense of effortless efficacy. At least in the case of the zone, the phrase "doing nothing" could be misleading. There is still a sense of participation or 'doing', but it is very different from the normal sense of doing. In particular, things like effort, planning, strategizing, and evaluating are extremely attenuated if not gone altogether. You still have a general, underlying intent to do stuff and you still carry out actions along these lines, but the stuff you do feels natural, automatic, and bottom-up rather than deliberate, effortful, and top-down. (continued)

Just stick with whatever is going on right now. Nothing else.

That could be planning or strategizing, or tying your shoes or learnng a new skill, could be lying, cheating, stealing, or it could be fantasizing about how enlightened one is going to become, could be a fruition or an amazing insight into the oneness of everythings, could be stopping at or running a red light, could be intense anger or intense love or lust, could be being in the zone, or it could be completely unskillful confused behavior that causes all kinds of problems, could be anxiety or bliss. And on and on and on.

Anything important will keep coming back up until it is dealt with, any planning that needs to be done will be done and if it isn't then the result of the lack of planning will be dealt with if necessary and won't be if not necessary.

From Mr. Folk:

"You can stop now. Stop trying to figure it out. Stop trying to get enlightened. Stop concentrating. Stop investigating. Stop meditating. Stop trying to stop.

Be as you are.

There is nothing outside of this. Primordial Awareness pervades and gives rise to and is not other than the entire manifest Universe. You don't have to do anything to be it; nothing you could do would make you other than it. You can't mess it up or tarnish or stain it. You've never been apart from it. In order to recognize it, you have only to stop adding "yourself" to it. To even refer to this most fundamental of realities as "it" or to call it anything at all, including "Primordial Awareness" is to risk reducing it to a concept and thereby missing it. Nonetheless, having once discovered it and learned to trust it, we feel compelled to share, so we do our best to point using the words we have.

Nothing you can do will lead to this. Nothing you can do or not do will lead you away from this. No amount of meditative attainment or achievement will get you any closer or any farther away. The very act of doing or intending anything is something you are adding to this moment; when you are actively doing something, even something so seemingly innocuous as investigating your experience, you are "compounding" or adding something extra to your experience. The Awareness we are pointing to is said to be uncompounded and unconditioned. It's what is revealed when you stop adding to this moment. Recognizing buddha nature in this moment is enlightenment. Failing to recognize buddha nature in this moment is ignorance. To recognize buddha nature in this moment and to train in this recognition and gain stability in it is the happiness that does not depend upon conditions. May you recognize buddha nature now."

A lot has happened in my practice in the last 10 days.
Something is opening up -- just a sliver, I t hink, but enough to give me a possible preview of what may be to come, you know? If feels like there is so much more to come and that it is endless.
The change that created what seems like rapid progress is this:
I went from a motivation in which I was strongly seeking specific states, stages and experience to one in which I wanted a point of view that would give me composure no matter what was going on inside me or aound me.
Unless I'm missing something (pretty likely!) the four noble truths are about the truth of suffering and the ending of suffering, and that is key to me -- ending suffering NOW. Anything that does that for ME, I want to do, anything that just increases suffering, I am highly motivated to eliminate.
I'm really tired of suffering.
And, if there is a way out I want to go there.
Now, it is possible that I may in the future have amazing experiences and go to cool states of mind and achieve developmental stages. But, I only want those to happen if they are a by-product of my practices to elminate my suffering. Otherwise, **** it.

Hi, Mike. It's clear from reading your posts of late that you've made a transition of some sort and that has opened things up for you. Congratulations, and keep going.

"
Hi, Mike. It's clear from reading your posts of late that you've made a transition of some sort and that has opened things up for you. Congratulations, and keep going.

"

Thanks, your encouragement means a lot to me.

Complete surrender requires:
Being willing to never be enlightened.
Being open to never changing
Begin open to changing completely
Being willing to never feel better
Being willing to never unravel any of the mysteries of life
Being willing to handle the mysteries of life unraveling
Being willing to lose everything.
Being willing to lose nothing
Being willing to make huge mistakes
A conviction that there is no other choice.

you can be as peaceful as you can bear -- the earth will allow it

"A lot has happened in my practice in the last 10 days.
Something is opening up -- just a sliver, I t hink, but enough to give me a possible preview of what may be to come, you know? If feels like there is so much more to come and that it is endless.
The change that created what seems like rapid progress is this:
I went from a motivation in which I was strongly seeking specific states, stages and experience to one in which I wanted a point of view that would give me composure no matter what was going on inside me or aound me.
Unless I'm missing something (pretty likely!) the four noble truths are about the truth of suffering and the ending of suffering, and that is key to me -- ending suffering NOW. Anything that does that for ME, I want to do, anything that just increases suffering, I am highly motivated to eliminate.
I'm really tired of suffering.
And, if there is a way out I want to go there.
Now, it is possible that I may in the future have amazing experiences and go to cool states of mind and achieve developmental stages. But, I only want those to happen if they are a by-product of my practices to elminate my suffering. Otherwise, **** it.
"

Awesome Mike!


Yes, sounds like you're understanding the Four Noble Truths... this understanding is indeed a fundamental key. New discoveries (without expectations) will come to light.

I recall our first few conversations back when you first joined Dho and KFD... Wow, you've come a long way! So very cool!

no content
no agenda
no buddha
no enlightenment
no nirvana
(no fixed position)
huge vast endless mind

Master Sekiso said, "You are at the top of the 100 foot high pole. How will you make a step further?"