The only important aspect of life to note is the fact that every so-called “thing” is
changing. Every so-called thing that can be identified is changing in some way, in
each moment.
If this simple fact is acknowledged clearly, it becomes obvious that life has no
particular form. It is a movement of some kind, a constantly flowing, streaming,
shifting, occurrence.
This is the universal experience. It doesn’t matter if it is an astronomer describing
the movement of the universe, or a physicist describing existence as the flow of
energy, or an individual on the street corner complaining that their body, moods,
and circumstances are always changing beyond their control, the experience of
life is that it is an ever-shifting, unformed, occurrence.
Even when sitting, and doing absolutely nothing, it will become obvious that the
simple happening of this moment is the sensation of a moving, shifting, flowing,
streaming, pulsing, tingling, occurrence.
Every apparent thing, whether it’s a thought, a body, a mountain, a world, or
anything else, is an unformed movement of some kind.
There are no stable things in life, no lasting forms. There is only a mysterious,
unformed, flowing.
It’s also the fact that no one is causing this flowing to occur and no one can stop it
from flowing.
However, ignoring the direct sensation of unformed flowing will give rise to a
focus on fantasies of name and form (ideas of form, thoughts of form,
descriptions of form, stories of form) and an obsessive belief in those fantasies.
The fantasies of name and form (ideas, thoughts, descriptions, stories) give rise to
the following fantasies:
The story (fantasy) of consciousness, an invisible form that has forms of
awareness (seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling, thinking).
The story (fantasy) of awareness perceiving physical forms and mental forms.
The story (fantasy) of a body form (an eye, ear, torso, tongue, nose, and brain).
The story (fantasy) of a body form contacting other forms, various “things”
(sights, sounds, touches, tastes, smells and thoughts).
The story (fantasy) of feeling forms arising in this contact (pleasant, unpleasant,
and neutral/boring feelings)
The hopeful daydream (fantasy) of keeping only pleasant feelings and avoiding
unpleasant feelings.
The imagined story (fantasy) of control, forms of mental and physical control, and
the intention fantasy of keeping only pleasant “things” while avoiding unpleasant
“things”.
But every “thing” is uncontrollable flow, constant change, so intentions of control
give rise to the story (fantasy) of forms of failure, forms of loss, and forms of
sorrow, based on failure and loss.
The above fantasies, combined, become the story (fantasy) of a consciousness
born into a body and a world of objects, a “self” that is capable of controlling the
world and directing world events, a “self” that is repeatedly suffering the loss of
pleasant things, a “self” that is ultimately failing to be, and failing to get, what it
wants to be and get, and a “self” that will eventually die at some point.
All of this is considered to be a true understanding of existence, but it is fantasy.
The actual experience of life is that it is a moving, shifting, flowing, event that has
no particular form and no particular name. It is a mysterious flowing that simply
flows the way it flows, in any moment. It is not a “self”, nor a “self’s possession”,
nor a “self’s doing”.
Any attempt to view life as form will produce major disappointments, because all
apparent forms are changing and will eventually disappear; they have a
beginning, an ageing, and an ending. They are not things at all; they are a
mysterious, unformed, movement.
Descriptions of particular forms do not apply to the unformed flowing that life
actually is, and any attempt to impose those fantasies of form onto this unformed
flowing will eventually produce confusion and distress.
These ideas of form, thoughts of form, descriptions of form, and stories of form,
are not mental activities contained in a consciousness. The ideas, thoughts,
descriptions, and stories create the fantasy that they are mental activities
contained in a consciousness.
It’s also the fact that the brain does not create these ideas, thoughts,
descriptions, and stories. Instead, ideas, thoughts, descriptions, and stories,
create the fantasy of a brain and its functioning.
In the same way, they create the story (fantasy) of all things in existence. They
are great stories, but they are never describing the actual experience of life.
There is no way to say what these ideas, thoughts, descriptions, and stories
actually are, because they are also a movement, a functioning of some kind, that
has no particular form or explanation.
They can be useful at times, and even entertaining, but it is obvious that they can
never be a true assessment of existence, because they deny the universal
experience of life as a flowing, streaming, unformed, occurrence.
They are called ideas, thoughts, descriptions, and stories, “about” life, because
they are obviously not the actual experience of life.
The sensation of unformed flowing, that existence actually is, is not a “self”, nor a
“self’s possession”, nor a “self’s doing”. It is not a “world”. It is not
“consciousness”. It is not “awareness”. It is not anyone’s success or failure. It is
not anyone’s accomplishment.
The sensation of this moment happening is a mysterious flowing, streaming,
pulsing, tingling, occurrence … an unformed movement that simply moves the
way it moves.
Ideas, thoughts, descriptions, and stories, can’t tell us what this is, or why it is, or
why it happens the way that it happens.
Life will always be the unexplainable, unformed, flowing sensation that it is … at
times appearing to be pleasant and blissful, at other times, unpleasant and painful
… but it is always a mysterious, wondrous, flow, and not the miserable, conflicted,
angst-ridden, story of a poor little “self” in a cold, alien, “world”, because all
stories, even a single label, are fantasies … the fantasies of name and form.