I am in pain.
Things are not the way I want them to be. I feel that they are not the way I want them to be, and I struggle to make them otherwise.
What is this pain?
I exist objectively in the universe but, unlike other things that exist objectively in the universe – the stars, rivers, pebbles on a beach, the ground I am standing on – I also experience the circumstances of my existence, subjectively.
When these circumstances align with my needs and preferences, my experience is positive.
When they are counter to my needs and preferences, my experience is negative.
I exist in the universe but I cannot fully control the circumstances I find myself in.
Frequently, these circumstances are pulled around by the causation surrounding me in ways that do not align with my needs or preferences.
Now is one such moment: things are not the way I want them to be. Hence, I am in pain.
I react against my pain. I wish things were otherwise. I dwell on what has been lost and on what might have been. I feel frustrated and anxious.
As I reflect on these thoughts and feelings, I find that each of them shares a common feature at its core: an internalised value judgement of the form, “I will be satisfied on condition that…”
I am going to call such value judgements “desires”.
What does it mean if there is desire?
If I desire something I do not have – that is, if I make my sense of satisfaction dependent on a condition that is not fulfilled – then I will, by definition, feel dissatisfied.
I am going to call this sense of dissatisfaction “suffering”.
If I desire something I already have – if my sense of satisfaction is contingent upon a condition that is fulfilled – then I will, by definition, feel satisfied.
However, if I also desire that it will remain in my possession into the future, then this is a condition that cannot be fulfilled: a desire about a future state cannot, by definition, be fulfilled in the present.
I have no way of knowing whether the thing that I have in my possession might be taken away from me by the causation surrounding me – perhaps even in the very next moment.
Consequently, any desire that things be different or that things stay the same will be unfulfilled in the moment in which the desire exists.
Any such desire can therefore be equated, by definition, with suffering.
What would it mean if there were no desire?
If there were no desire, there would be no internalised value judgements of the form, “I will be satisfied on condition that…”
If there were no such value judgements, there would be no unfulfilled conditions of that form, and therefore no dissatisfaction.
In other words, if there were no desire then there would, by definition, be no suffering.
This is not to say that I would no longer be in pain, that circumstances would no longer be out of alignment with my needs and preferences, that I would no longer struggle.
However, I would no longer react against my pain through the thought processes of desire and suffering.
What would life be like without desire? What would it feel like? From where would I find the volition to act?
If I am thirsty and I desire not to be, then I will feel thirst and, in addition, I will feel suffering due to the lack of fulfilment of my desire not to be thirsty.
If I then drink, then the feeling of thirst will go away and, due to the fulfilment of my desire, the corresponding suffering will also go away.
If I am thirsty but there is no desire, then the feeling of thirst will be there, but there will be no corresponding feeling of suffering.
If there were no desire, would I still be able to drink? Would I even want to?
I am in a room. Closing my eyes, I speak aloud the words, “What is there?”
In the very next moment, I happen to notice tension across my face, in my shoulders and in my jaw.
I take a breath in, and exhale slowly through my mouth.
My attention happens to be drawn to tension either side of my eyes.
I say again, “What is there?”
Once again, I notice tension on the sides of my face.
Then, I become aware of the feeling of the seat I am sitting on.
Next, from outside, I happen to notice the sound of a car driving along a nearby road.
“What is there?”
There is tension across my face, a breath in and then out. There is the seat I am sitting on. There is a sound from outside.
I become aware of the space I am in, my place in the room that surrounds me.
For a moment, my own internal, directed thought processes fall away and my experience becomes only that of immediate sensations.
I become a still centre point of awareness; sensations, which now take on a crisper and more expansive quality than before, play out in stereo around me.
I allow myself to linger in this experience of pure sensation.
It is some moments later.
I have been lost in reveries. At some point, my focus has switched from the sensations of the present moment, back to my own internal, directed thought processes: plans, fantasies, memories, worries and so on.
I notice this has happened; I breathe in, and exhale slowly.
I try again: “What is there?”
I follow the same pattern as before: sensations come to me – physical sensations, a sound from outside, the space I am in.
I become a still centre point as these sensations take on a sharper focus and play out in stereo around me.
Some time later, I realise that this experience of pure sensation has, once again, been swept away by my own internal, directed thought processes.
I persevere, and find myself repeating the same pattern again and again.
I ask myself, “What is there?” Sensations come to me. Then, after a while, I realise I have become distracted – at which point, I ask myself the same question again, and the cycle repeats.
As I continue to persist with this cycle – sensation, distraction, realisation, and back to sensation – the experiences of sensation start to last for longer and the instances of distraction become less frequent.
Then, the distractions cease altogether.
I hold the present moment, perfectly poised, in my awareness.
As the clouds of my own thinking begin to part, my senses become heightened.
I open my eyes, and it is like the world around me is now in higher resolution, higher fidelity.
Turning inward, I can still feel my pain.
However, in this moment, sensation is the whole of my experience.
There are none of my own internal, directed thought processes and therefore no thoughts – no internalised value judgements – of the form, “I will be satisfied on condition that…”
In other words, there is no desire.
Consequently, though I can feel my pain, I do not feel suffering.
My pain is just another quality of sensation, just another colour in the spectrum of my experience.
In this state of pure sensation, another kind of feeling starts to become apparent: a lightness of being, almost a kind of low-level euphoria.
For a moment, this feeling catches me off guard: it rises and surges in my awareness, steals the breath from my lungs.
Then, it plateaus and I exhale, gathering myself. I pause for a moment.
I have been sat for some time, and I notice I have become thirsty.
In front of me is a glass of water. Reaching out my hand, I pick up the glass, and I drink.
Contemplating my experience, one thought leads to another, and another.
Before I know it, my own internal, directed thought processes have overtaken the world of sensation and I am consumed once again by plans, fantasies, memories, worries and so on.
I am in a forest. I am walking along a wide, stony track with trees on either side.
I am absorbed by my own internal, directed thought processes: plans, fantasies, memories, worries and so on.
It begins to rain: a thin, light rain that is caught by the breeze and swirls a little.
I stop walking and open my umbrella.
I breathe in, exhale slowly, and speak aloud: “What is there?”
Quite abruptly, I find myself in a moment of pure sensation. My own internal, directed thought processes dissipate. My senses become heightened.
The breeze wraps around my cheeks and carries some of the raindrops onto my face, where I feel them like individual particles of a fine spray, one after another.
I happen to notice that there is tension underneath my eyes and in my jaw. Upon noticing it, the tension dissipates.
The rain is making a soft, pitter-patter sound on my umbrella. Occasionally, a single droplet falls from an overhanging branch and lands on the stretched fabric with a sound like the plucking of a low, muffled guitar string.
With my senses heightened, an experience which would otherwise be mundane and unremarkable becomes one of crisp and vivid intricacies. I find myself taking pleasure in its complex beauty.
Up until this point, I have waited for sensation to come to me. Now, purely for the sake of enjoyment, I go looking for sensation.
I move my focus, without trying to apprehend or analyse in any way, in the direction of the things I have noticed – the sound of the rain, the breeze and the light raindrops on my face, the feeling of relaxation below my eyes and in my jaw – and I drink in the rich qualities of these sensations.
I expand my focus out beyond my immediate awareness, and alight on the sound of leaves rustling in the wind.
With my awareness focussed onto this sound, and only on this sound, it is like time is slowing down and I am hearing everything in granular detail, the leaves rustling like a million tiny bells ringing in unison.
I take a deep breath in, and exhale slowly. I can feel the air passing through my nostrils on the way in, and over my lips on the way out.
I hold all of these sensations – those of my surroundings and those of my own body – in balance, simultaneously, in my awareness.
In the present moment, my experience is this and only this.
I am further along the path. As I have been walking, I have become lost in my own internal, directed thought processes: plans, fantasies, memories, worries and so on.
It is still raining. I walk over to the side of the path, reach out an arm, and rest the palm of my hand on the trunk of a tree.
The bark is cool and damp to touch. I feel its crisp and flaky texture. Pressing a little more firmly, I feel the strength of the trunk as it stands, rooted into the ground.
Stepping away from the tree, I take a deliberate breath in and back out. I pause for a moment.
Like a series of lights being switched back on, one after another, I become aware once again of the immediate sights, sounds and feelings of the present moment.
I continue to walk along the path, more slowly and more deliberately than before, noticing the contours and the feeling of solidity of the ground underfoot.
Turning a corner, I find myself alongside a river.
The water is crystal clear. Its current and its eddies create complex, swirling patterns on the surface, gurgling gently as the water flows over stones and rocks and between the embankments containing it.
Closing my eyes, I go looking for sensation.
I reach out with my awareness to take in the peaceful sound of the river flow.
I focus on the sound of the rain as it lands on my umbrella, on the ground, on the trees and in the water.
I absorb the subtle and exquisite sensations of the thin raindrops that land on my skin and of the breeze that carries them.
I take a moment to savour the feeling of relaxation in the muscles of my face.
I listen in to the sound of the leaves rustling in high fidelity.
I bathe in this wraparound, multi-sensory experience, allowing its pleasurable qualities to seep into my awareness.
I am still in pain. Tentatively, I explore its qualities, allow the feelings of pain to take their place, unopposed, in my experience.
I hold all of these sensations, of pleasure and of pain, in balance, simultaneously, in my awareness and this, in the present moment, is the whole of my experience.
I feel a wave rising inside of me, like a natural high, a strange and unfamiliar kind of bliss.
It rises and rises, higher and higher. For a moment, this sense of bliss is uncomfortably intense. Then, I am over the wave and I am floating, supported as if by some kind of infinitely-powerful ocean.
In this moment, the world of sensation – the sensations of my surroundings, of my own body, of my pain and of the strange kind of bliss I am feeling – is the whole of my experience.
In this moment, I am not engaging in any internalised value judgements of the form, “I will be satisfied on condition that…” In other words, there is no desire. Consequently, while I can still feel my pain, I do not suffer.
I look down at the river.
The water flows past. When it reaches an obstacle, it flows around it in perfect geometry, just as it should.
If it were to reach a sheer drop and turn into a waterfall, it would break into droplets, each one of which would fall in perfect geometry, precisely as it should.
The water is expressing its nature, unencumbered by desire or by suffering.
As I contemplate these things, one thought leads to another, and another.
Before I know it, I am being pulled back down into the vortex of my own internal, directed thought processes and my experience is, once again, consumed by plans, fantasies, memories, worries and so on.
I am falling. Sensation is raging in my ears and eyes.
All I can hear is the roar of the wind. I feel it against my face and my chest like a storm.
Around me is a cloudless, blue sky. Below me, far away, is a panorama of brilliant white, flecked with black, augmented with patches of deep, turquoise blue and, here and there, some green.
The picture below me starts to grow closer and takes on greater definition: snow-covered mountains, glaciers, lakes, forests.
My arms are outstretched. I am falling, but I am also flying.
In this moment, these raging, inescapable sensations are the whole of my experience.
As I fall, my body adjusts and responds: adrenaline surges through my veins; endorphins and dopamine flood my brain.
I feel exhilaration and a kind of euphoric peace from this chemical high, but I also feel something else: the purity of an experience that is the sensation of the present moment and nothing more.
I am in a church.
The church is deserted. At another time, there will be rows of worshippers, knelt in submission, hands clasped, heads bowed and eyes half-closed.
Above them, the vaulted ceiling will arc upwards as if reaching for the heavens.
In this geometry of prayer, each of them will open up their own subjective experience and throw it outwards in search of a communion with something objective and infinite.
I linger near the doorway for a moment and then turn to leave, the sounds of my footsteps made crisper by the hard surfaces of the floors and walls and by the wide, open space contained by them.
The church is on an island. Outside, the Sun is rising. There is a road ahead of me, the shoreline to my right, and a steep climb up a hillside to my left.
I turn left and follow a grassy footpath up and over rocky outcrops until, after some time, I reach the top.
From this vantage point, I can see the whole island.
They call this a “thin place” because, here, the gap between the earth and the heavens feels especially narrow.
Out at sea are other islands. From the horizon, the Sun throws shafts of amber light across the water.
Down by the shoreline are beaches of pure, white sand where, in times gone by, the monks would stand, arms flung apart, their bare chests offered up to the harsh spray and rain of a cold ocean.
Today, the sea is calm and the sky is clear. I feel a gentle breeze on my face. I feel my own, measured breaths, in and out. I feel relaxation in my shoulders. I feel the springy turf underfoot as I stand.
In this moment, all of these sensations together – of my surroundings and of my own body – are the whole of my experience.
I look upwards. Beyond the azure sky, there is a whole Universe.
This Universe is alive with activity of every kind and at every scale, from whole galaxies which twist through space at tremendous speed, to blazing stars, ice worlds, great storms and volcanos, to the tiniest drop of water in a waterfall, to the perplexing machinations of quantum particles.
As spectacular and as beautiful as these things may be, if they exist objectively but they only exist objectively, and there is nothing which also experiences its own existence subjectively, then something will be missing.
Now let us imagine that somewhere out there is a point of subjective experience: a locus point in space and time where sensations of the surrounding Universe come together and are joined by thoughts, memories, abstractions, ideas and imagination.
This point of subjective experience is like a jewel: it reflects and refracts the Universe in new and creative ways.
However, this jewel is darkened by suffering.
The point of subjective experience is a finite entity which cannot fully control its circumstances. It finds itself pulled around by the surrounding causation in ways that threaten its survival and its wellbeing. It experiences pain and discomfort.
If it desires that things be different — if it engages in an internalised value judgement of the form, “I will be satisfied on condition that things are different” — then it will, by definition, feel dissatisfied: it will suffer.
On the other hand, if it is experiencing pleasure or comfort and desires that things will stay as they are, then it will not be able to fulfil this desire either, because it can never have the satisfaction of knowing that what it has will not be snatched away from it by the surrounding causation, perhaps even in the very next moment.
Although the point of subjective experience is a locus point for sensory input, its sensations are often pushed to the margins of its awareness by the prevalence and the persistence of its own internal, directed thought processes.
Desire is one such thought process. Like bindweed, it wraps itself around any pleasure or pain that might be felt, setting up conditions and evaluations that take subjective experience away from the sensations of the present moment and which hold that experience in a state of suffering.
Sometimes this state of suffering is acute and pronounced; sometimes it is lower-level and more subtle. However, it is always there, so long as desire is there.
Now, if the point of subjective experience can bring its awareness back to the world of sensation, and make this the whole of its experience, then in that moment there will be no internal, directed thought processes and, therefore, no desires.
Consequently, by definition, there will be no suffering.
To sustain such a moment of pure awareness is very difficult to achieve. These directed thought processes are deeply habituated and can seem to creep up without warning.
With perseverance, it is possible to reduce the frequency of such interruptions and to make the experiences of pure awareness last for longer.
It is also possible to shortcut the process by seeking out sensations so intense and inescapable that all other thought processes are pushed to one side.
It could be a concert, a walk in heavy rain and wind, a sky dive — anything that takes the point of subjective experience out of itself and into a direct awareness of the present moment.
Whichever route is taken — whether the gradual route in which the distractions fizzle out or the sudden route in which they are blown away — the goal is the same: a sustained awareness of the present moment and of this only.
When this happens, sensations are brought to life in greater definition and fidelity than ever before, because they are no longer competing for attention with internal, directed thought processes.
Something as simple as the rustling of leaves, or the flow of clear water in a river, takes on a richer, deeper, more expansive quality when it is the only thing on which subjective experience is focussed.
Beyond this direct awareness of sensation, a subjective experience that is freed from desire will feel something else: not merely an absence of suffering, but the opposite of suffering.
Rather than a state of satisfaction that is conditional upon circumstances being this way or that, the opposite of suffering is, put simply, a state of satisfaction that is unconditional.
By definition, this feeling does not change from one set of objective circumstances to the next, because it requires simply that the point of subjective experience exists and does not place conditions upon its satisfaction: it is no more or less than the experiential quality of unconditionality.
This state of being can be called the “Unconditioned” because it is not conditioned either by objective circumstances or by any internalised value judgement held by the point of subjective experience.
The Unconditioned can be felt at any moment in which subjective experience releases itself from desire.
It is the undercurrent of pure experience itself. It is ever-present, immutable, singular. I feel it now.
I am a point of subjective experience in the Universe, standing on a patch of green, surrounded by blue, between the earth and the sky.
I feel the breeze on my face, the ground I am standing on, the relaxation of my muscles, my breaths in and out.
I see the land, I see the ocean, I see the sky.
In the distance I hear the calling of seabirds, a car engine, a faint voice here or there.
I am in pain. My pain takes its place, unopposed, in my experience.
I feel the Unconditioned, its iron tranquility holding me up in repose.
I look out across the island. In the distance, by the shore, is a village.
I think about the people I care about who live in the village. Sometimes I worry about how they are, what will become of them. I let these feelings go. As I hold these people now in my thoughts, I continue to care about them, but I care without caring.
There is something I need to think through: a decision I need to make.
I begin to walk in the direction of the village, along a different path from the one I ascended.
I set to work on my decision, allowing my thoughts to roam freely. Now and then, I bring my awareness back to the sensations and feelings of the present moment: my surroundings, the sensations of my body, the Unconditioned.
The path meanders this way and that. As I walk, serendipity supplies fragments of the answer.
After a while, I reach the village. The Sun has risen higher in the sky, the world has woken up and people are walking through the streets, going about their business.
Several times, I pass someone I know. We smile and say, “Good morning”.
I reach a fork in the road. It is time to make my decision. If I choose one option, my life will go in one direction. If I choose the other option, my life will go in another direction.
I stop for a moment. I breathe in, and exhale slowly. I take in the sensations and feelings of my surroundings, of my own body, and of the Unconditioned.
My thoughts are calm; the contours of my decision appear to me in sharp focus.
I make my choice, I turn, and I walk forward.