When a person is faced with a description of the practice of awareness and contemplation, in most cases, he kind of "builds" this practice into his world, creates a projection of this practice in it. The reader, immersed in thoughts, faced with a description of the real world, begins to look for this real in what he is immersed in. When you need to find something, a person habitually plunges into the world of his thoughts. Even if we take as consideration the search for such a simple object as a glass on the table, first of all we are looking for this glass in our own mind. The body mechanically performs actions, and is sent to “photograph” reality, so that then the mind continues to search for a glass already on these mental “photographs” - imprints of reality.
When it comes to starting to see everything as it is, it must be taken literally, as simply and as practical as possible. It will be a mistake to think that seeing everything in real light is remembering events, and trying to draw from them any (even true or useful) conclusions.
To see everything as it is means to see the present - that which is now between the past and the future without mental coloring. Seeing everything as it is means being aware of your own presence in the continuous present. The mind projects pictures of time on the screen of consciousness. But in reality you are always present in the present spontaneously, without any special tension or intention for this. Seeing everything as it is means that all the so-called events are perceived in their true light, as thought forms taking place in the present. They have nothing to do with the future or the past, but are a kind of illusory, unsteady ripples against the background of a simple spontaneous moment here and now.
Why does it often take years to realize this self-evident simple truth? It's all about the habit of the mind. Personality cannot perceive the impersonal due to its nature. However, if it seems that this is some kind of laborious process, or something mystical, transcendental - these thoughts and experiences themselves give rise to all these complex aspects. Even meditation is to some extent something artificial, a kind of tension against the background of what exists spontaneously, easily and freely at every moment of life.
However, meditation is one of the last steps, and if you drop it prematurely, you can deprive yourself of a real opportunity to look deeper under the cover of illusion. In a sense, all techniques of contemplation are a subtle variety of tensions and residual vanity. It is as if we are rushing life, expecting some results from practice in the future. This is one of the great paradoxes. There's nowhere to rush. The "future goal" of this practice is always present now.
You can imagine this in the form of a virtual pyramid, the foundation of which is the basis for movement and goal achievement. The body of the pyramid is a path stretched out in time. The top of the pyramid is crowned with a source, a great eye, as we approach which, we are amazed to discover that there is nothing there. The top of the pyramid becomes infinitely thinner and disappears. The goal of the path, which awaited us somewhere in the future, suddenly reveals itself in the present. This is not just an achievement, but a paradoxical realization that the goal is not some kind of tangible experience or form, but that "container" where these forms and experiences continuously occur. A separate article is devoted to this paradoxical "substance".
Everything happens in the space of the present moment here and now. We can say that a year ago you were in the present, and you are in it now. However, this very “year ago” is not at all a real event left in the past, but just a thought. And no matter what this thought is about, it is important that it is happening now, in the present. Everything that is exists exclusively in the present. Everything that we know about ourselves and our life is thoughts occurring in the present. And if each thought is realized as something spontaneously occurring at the present moment in time, the vanity finally stops.
The transition to a spontaneous awareness of the present occurs effortlessly, unexpectedly for the individual. Something inside at a subconscious level realizes the wisdom of this simple truth, as if the mind that gives the final decisions finally heard the practitioner's desire. The practitioner himself did not even know exactly what he was waiting for, because he was immersed in the world of thought. The desired freedom for him did not exist in its true essence. Freedom that has not yet been found is rather a negation - freedom from fetters, suffering and restrictions without which it does not exist. Clinging to this "freedom", we clung to these fetters and suffering, because without them there would be no concept of freedom. Therefore, understanding at the level of the mind alone cannot achieve anything. True understanding is intuitive and happens in an incomprehensible way by itself, when we completely relax in the present.
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In true freedom, there is neither denial nor clinging. When the mind is silent, reality is reflected in it. The simpler the attitude to what is happening, the calmer the mind. Simplicity, peace, clarity in the absolute sense - all this is one whole, bottomless, indivisible being that is happening now.
