Realization of Completeness

Exploring some subtle misunderstandings in meditation

Prologue

Perfect satisfaction is found in the realization of every moment of experience as complete, in the sense of not requiring that anything be added, subtracted or modified in sensory experience.

The realization of every moment of experience as complete arises from what can be described as the Pure Presence of Pristine Awareness.

This text elaborates on the above statements, to assist in their precise comprehension. Each emphasized term above will be unpacked. It will be most useful for intermediate-to-advanced meditators, to help comprehend subtle misunderstandings, such as:

• Limitations or fixedness as to what is included in sensation.

• Confusing existential aversion with practical aversion.

• Considering that satisfaction can only be found in certain states.

• Seeking spiritual or meditative attainments.

• Confusing subtle sensations with transcendental revelations.

• Confusion about in what ways “there is nothing to do”.

• Confusion about the necessity or non-necessity of change in state.

• Taking any description as a concrete reality, a “ground truth” of existence.

Sensory Experience

Comprehensive Sensation is all that is known as experience. All experience is known, but may not be able to be conceptualized. Experience includes sensations such as the below, but is not limited to them. There is always more sensation present than can be described in these ways:

• Of the world: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, temperature, and subtle world sensation, such as hunches and intuition.

• Of the body: proprioception (felt-sense of joint position), sense of muscular effort, organ contraction/relaxation (tightness in throat, clench in belly), pain, electrical tingling, and subtle body sensation, that is sensation that feels nebulously associated with the body, such as sensation close outside the envelope of the skin, the sensation generated by somatic energy practices, or general sensation that is not precisely located, such as feelings in the chest area or in the gut area.

• Of the self-subject: the felt-senses of cognition (thought), emotion, desire, imagination, bodily know-how involved in doing a manual task, attention, scope of peripheral awareness, and more… all of these as sensations, without either label or story. For example, emotion can be felt as a texture that colors the world, desire can be felt as an inchoate impulse that moves you in one direction or another, and unelaborated cognition is present in the immediate recognition of objects without discursive verbiage: this is a chair, a cup, a plant. (Self-subject is that which seems to belong to a subject appearing in experience. As a subtle point, this can be considered separately from unconditioned identification as a subject appearing in experience: this is the distinction between having a self or having many selves, and being a self or being many selves)

• Of others: the felt-sense of perceiving self-subject sensations in others.

• Of spirit: a broad class of sensations that is experienced as not of the world, the body, or of the self-subject or of others, for example, “spirit descending by means of grace”.

• The basis of objects: that which is the basis of comprehending the body and world, including perceived time, the felt-sense of duration (how long or short does something feel like?, perceived space, the felt-sense of extension (how far does space seem to extend in various directions, how close and far are things felt to be?), and the felt-sense of causality (what is immediately apprehended as being in a causal relation), and more… Objects are generally felt to arise in time and space, and to have causal interactions between them; this perceived time, space and causality are also sensations.

• Of conditioned identification: the sensory faculty which discriminates sensation as the world, body, self-subject, others, or spirit.

• And more: Again, all that can be described as being experienced is a sensation. There is always something more to be described that escapes whatever categories we may use for practical purposes.

Pristine Awareness

Consider clear light, the light in the air that has not encountered an object. When it encounters an object, clear light becomes visible as the rainbow spectrum of variegated color. Pristine awareness is like that clear light, with no describable characteristics, and sensation is like the variegated colors that arise from clear light when forms are seen. Unconditioned identification with pristine awareness may spontaneously arise when all experience is recognized as sensation illuminated by awareness.

This awareness of experience can be described as pristine because it is utterly free of anything objectifiable. It is only describable as an aspect of the experiencer/experienced/experiencing unity, but never independently. If, for example, one can gesture, even nebulously, at the experience of pristine awareness, that is not pristine awareness, as pristine awareness in itself is experiencing only, without anything understood about it. As a cognizable experience, even if nebulously, any apparent feeling of pristine awareness is an experience that arises to pristine awareness, and so is actually sensation of some sort.

Pure Presence

Sensory Presence is to experience sensations without adding to them, subtracting from them, or modifying them by any of the three following actions; these are three forms of avoiding relationship with sensation, instead of being responsively alive to it:

• Clinging Attachment: the subtlest sense of wanting the sensation to continue.

• Pushing Away: the subtlest sense of wanting the sensation not to continue.

• Active Ignoring: the subtlest sense of wanting not to experience the sensation.

Sensory presence is not achievable by any action; it is the triple release of any action, the release of clinging attachment, pushing away, and active ignoring of sensation, and so could be called a nonaction.

Attempting to remedy Active Ignoring or Pushing Away by instead noticing a sensation is just to avoid relationship by clinging attachment. For example, “notice your bodily sensation.” While perhaps a useful preliminary, this is not the triple release of nonaction.

Attempting to remedy clinging attachment by active ignoring is also not the triple release of nonaction. For example, “pay no attention to your thoughts.” Again, this is perhaps a useful preliminary.

This nonaction is not about “action” in the conventional sense of doing what you want. It has to do with subtle relation to the sensorium. The sensorium is the sense fields taken as a unitary whole that have distinctions, but which cannot be ultimately separated perfectly into distinct sensory channels.

In practice, nonaction is “developed” by cultivating the recognition that these actions are being done, from which release spontaneously follows. There is no a priori best circumstance for cultivating this recognition; it varies by individual, and for any given individual over time.

Pure Presence is complete release into the full breadth of sensory presence, without any of the three actions that attempt to add to, subtract from, or modify sensation, whether sensations of the world, body, self-subject, other, spirit, the basis of objects, or identification.

No sensation is a necessarily arising sensation in any individual's case. For example, the deaf have no hearing, some people are born without sensitivity to pain. Similarly, lack of emotional sensation, mind-blindness to others, or lack of spiritual sensation, are not in any way “impediments” to pure presence.

Perfect Satisfaction

Perfect Satisfaction arises from the recognition of the atemporal, acausal moment as complete.

Pure presence is an implicit recognition of every moment of sensation as perfectly complete, without any felt need to add, subtract or modify any aspect of sensation. These moments can be described as atemporal and acausal, as temporality and causality are themselves forms of sensation, and are not the context in which the full breadth of sensation arises.

Consider a video that has had its frames scrambled…time and causality are no longer portrayed. The same felt-sense of loss of time and causality occurs when experience of necessary relations between moments weaken. A moment can be described as “atemporal” if it is not felt to imply a necessary relation between what appears to be previous or subsequent moments. A moment can be described as “acausal” when it is not felt to imply a necessary “what comes next” in felt-experience.

Thoughts such as “I want things to be different”, or the felt-sense of inchoate desire, are also sensations. It is the sensation in itself that is recognized as complete, but the content of the sensation may concern change. It could be said that in Pure Presence, that wanting the state of the world, body, self-subject, others, or spirit to be other than it is, feels perfect, and equally so wanting the state of the world, body, self, others or spirit to continue being as it is, feels perfect. This relation to states is a result of pure presence, not techniques or methods or conceptual understandings in themselves.

Satisfaction arises from the recognition of the moment being perfectly complete as it is. Whatever state that arises, being complete, even those including states of conditioned dissatisfaction, such as “I want this” or “I do not want this”, is satisfactory as sensation. States that range from “the best”, such as the most pleasurable formless meditations, to “the worst”, such as experiences of intense pain and hate are both experienced as complete, and therefore satisfactory as sensation. Most of our experience with our most unwanted states is free of any lack of presence: we do not want the states, and have gone beyond any capability to push away or ignore the sensation. Paradoxically, then, states with less extreme negative valence have more opportunity for loss of presence, as do states with extreme positive valence.

Presence of Awareness

Pure Presence releases Comprehensive Sensation into illumination by the clear light of Pristine Awareness.

A room that has very tall window shades with springs. You are holding these shades down, and so keeping the windows closed. The room is dark. The window shades are too tall to manually move to a position that fully allows light in, but if you let go, they will instantly spring up to the top, fully illuminating the room.

The triple actions of clinging attachment, pushing away, and active ignoring of comprehensive sensation are actions like holding the window shades down. Any attempted antidote to any of these three actions is another one of these three actions and will not fully illuminate the room. Only a relaxation/release of the triple actions will do so. 

Illumination is instantaneous upon release, however long or in whatever form the window shades have been held down. With this release, sensation is illuminated by the clear light of Pristine Awareness, similarly to how in the metaphor, the room’s brightening is known when light hits the walls, while the light in its travels through air to illuminate the walls is clear and transparent.

After initial release has occurred, there is no inherent mechanism that re-asserts holding, but there may be further habitual holding, or not. To not hold is not a single, permanent event, but a continuous non-action…the room is only one here-and-now, and each moment, the here-and-now is only illuminated if held shades are released. Since, in release, the spatial-temporal here-and-now that is sensed as having space, time, and causality (the basis of objects) becomes atemporal and acausal, this release can be described both as occurring in time and outside of time. Esoterically, experiences of space, time, and causality could be said to be arising of aspatial, atemporal, and acausal Pristine Awareness. Nothing is ever excluded by Pristine Awareness.

In some sense, there is only one thing to “do”, and that is release of the triple action of clinging attachment, pushing away, and active ignorance of sensation, if they are being done. There is simply not any perfect or universal way to point out how to release a very subtle action that may not be broaching the threshold of conscious recognition. In some sense, the release is no more complicated than asking someone to lie down on the floor and relax their muscles, and noticing what tensions remain even after the attempt; some tensions that are not in consciousness will have tensions that do not become conscious even when skillfully pointed out. Effortfully trying to relax often only adds other subtle tension in the attempt to remedy. Releasing the triple action, similarly, has no graduated path that can do anything more than cultivate the possibility of sudden recognition of the triple action, with subsequent immediate release. Once the capability of release is first known, it becomes more familiar, and confidence builds up in the capability for continuous release and dissolves habitual holding that would require release.

Pristine Awareness, or experiencing-in-itself, fully experiences sensation when there is neither clinging attachment, pushing away, or active ignorance of the sensation. When Pure Presence releases Comprehensive Sensation into illumination by the clear light of Pristine Awareness, there is no longer only distinction between experiencer/experienced/experiencing, but simultaneous with distinction, pristine awareness and sensation are also a unity. This can be called, more succinctly, Presence of Awareness.

Clarity and Bliss

The illumination of sensation by Pristine Awareness that occurs with recognition of all experience as sensation and the release of the triple action that is Pure Presence can be described as Clarity. The unconditioned satisfaction that comes with release of all attempts to add to, subtract from, or modify sensation can be described as Bliss. This illumination of sensation and satisfaction as awareness are two inseparable aspects of Presence of Awareness.

The subtlest limitation on sensation, as it fixes the cognizance of sensation, is to take Presence of Awareness as a concrete experience, a fundamental “ground truth”. All the above verbiage is a gesturing towards, or an indication. Anything that appears to be concrete experience is solely part of comprehensive sensation, and so is not Presence of Awareness. The subtle action of concretizing Presence of Awareness is ruptured by release of all views that would attempt to objectify it, concretize it, or literalize it, and so replace Presence of Awareness with grasping a caricature of Presence of Awareness.

Perfect Accommodation

All states are accommodated; All states are liberated from causation. All states, from the most blissful meditation to the most agonizing pain and hate are accommodated by Presence of Awareness, and, without the triple action of clinging attachment, pushing away, and active ignoring, are liberated from causing other states of being (and as a corollary, are liberated from being caused by other states of being). There is no longer any inherent sequencing in states, by any principle of sequencing. A state may continue; it may not continue, and may be followed by any other state, fluidly and responsively. Material causation still pertains; hitting your thumb with a hammer may cause pain.

“Liberated” here means liberated from necessity and compulsion…an energy of emotion or desire or thought no longer compels a particular prescribed action, and so what flows from the energy can be perfectly and fluidly appropriate to the circumstance.

Benefiting the Totality

When Pure Presence releases Comprehensive Sensation into illumination by the clear light of Pristine Awareness, there are no reasons to either benefit, disadvantage, or leave the totality of what arises to experience as it is (the world, body, self-subject, others…whatever appears). Thus, benefitting the totality, or unboundedly spontaneous responsiveness, is the inevitable response in Presence of Awareness. “Benefit the totality” here could be elaborated as “to move towards what is concordant in the context of no fixed boundary between the world, self-subject, and other”.

There is no possibility of specifying what actions will benefit the totality, as any specification would not be fully context dependent. 

Any prescribed method to benefit the totality is not this unboundedly spontaneous response. Any action which has reasons is not this unboundedly spontaneous response. Any action that is not arising from the triple release is not this unboundedly spontaneous response. Because benefiting the totality is in accord with the conditioned knowledge of the totality given by experience (there is no omniscience), and by individual capability (there is no omnipotence), there is no external view which can prescribe what this entails, and, in fact, any view as to what this entails is the same error as taking Presence of Awareness as a concrete reality.

Recapitulation

Comprehensive Sensation is all experience that is experienced, whether of the world, body, self-subject, others, the basis of objects, identification, or further experiences.

Pristine Awareness is the faculty of knowing in itself. When all experience is recognized as sensation, then there is effortless identification with Pristine Awareness.

Sensory Presence is to experience sensations without adding to them, subtracting from them, or modifying them by any of the three actions of Clinging Attachment, Pushing Away, Active Ignoring. Pure Presence is full release into comprehensive sensory presence.

Pure Presence releases Comprehensive Sensation into illumination by the clear light of Pristine Awareness. This Recognition of the atemporal acausal moment as complete yields Unconditioned Satisfaction. This can be described as unconditioned Clarity and Bliss.

A subtle error is to take Clarity and Bliss as concrete reality, which is ruptured by releasing all literalizing views.

In Presence of Awareness, all states are accommodated, and all states are liberated from causing or being caused by other states; The action that manifests effortlessly from the triple release of sensory manipulation is Benefiting the Totality.

Key Considerations

• There is far more sensation than can be described, and while artificial division of sensory modalities can be a useful pointer to the variety of sensation, no description of sensory modalities can articulate all sensation.

• Clinging Attraction/Pushing Away/Active Ignorance are an issue in the dimension of sensation, not in other dimensions, such as the dimension of practical affairs, or the dimension of lived relationship to the world, body, self-subject, or others. Perfect satisfaction can be coincident with being aversive to paying bills or attracted to playing video games, for example.

• Perfect satisfaction can be found in all states of being, whether blissful absorption or raging.

• Perfect satisfaction does not require any particular state, nor the personal availability of any sensory modality, whether vision or spiritual sensation.

• Without understanding pristine awareness as the obverse (the other side of the coin, intrinsically related in a unity) of comprehensive sensation, it is easy to mis-identify a subtle sensation, such as the sense of spatiality, with awareness. If it can be described or understood even partially as an object, experienced to have object-like qualities, it is not pristine awareness. Releasing the triple action often allows more subtle sensation into cognizance; perhaps vision is brighter, or there is kinesthetic contact with an extended area of space. Being novel and profound experiences, these sensations may be mistaken for the feeling of pristine awareness in itself; rather, they are the experience of an increase in presence.

• “There is nothing to do” in the sense that releasing the triple action of sensory Clinging Attraction/Pushing Away/Active Ignorance is a release, not another action. In a similar sense, there is nothing to do in order to relax, as all strenuous attempts to relax yield further tension…but there is still something to not do…but further, trying to “not be tense” is again counterproductive!

• In release, what changes is that states no longer cause other states. This is acausality. A moment of rage does not cause a further moment of rage. A moment of blissful absorption does not cause a further moment of blissful absorption. A potential fluidity of states is present, with no prescription as to how states follow upon each other. Rage may spontaneously continue exactly as is, or may spontaneously turn into blissful absorption, or spontaneously become another state, with no necessary continuity. Whatever proceeds, though, being fully present to the circumstances, is intrinsically fully responsive to the circumstances, spontaneously and without prescription.

• These descriptions can only be a gesture towards something that is intrinsically not completely describable.

Thanks to MS, BM, DV, AB, AV, ML, JW, CM, VK, JO(1), JO(2), CA for reviewing drafts.