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NONDUALITY AND NIHILSMWHY NO PERSON, NO PAST, NO PATH

IS ONLY HALF THE STORY

by Jeff Foster December 2008

In the beginning, trees were trees,mountains were mountains,

and rivers were rivers.Then came a time when trees were no longer trees,

mountains were no longer mountains,and rivers were no longer rivers.Now, trees are once again trees,

mountains are once again mountains,and rivers are once again rivers."

- Zen saying

People sometimes tell me that they think this message is nihilistic. That itslife-denying, that it separates the absolute from the relative, emphasisesthe absolute and denies the relative. Then again, there are many people whoread my books and see that what I'm really talking about is unconditionallove and unity and the end of all seeking. Anyway, I'm fascinated by thevarying responses.

Sometimes the interpretations of what I write (or more correctly, what gets written!) do not at all match what is being communicated. Somebodyrecently hit the nail on the head when they suggested that upon hearing and

believing the words "there is nothing to get", someone might just go andcommit suicide because life was pointless. Its possible that the words couldbe taken that way. And at the same time, that would be to absolutely miss what the words are getting at. Violence of any sort - is not beingcondoned here.

The books were written as a confessionof what is seen clearly over here: righthere, right now, this is the miracle, the divine Mystery. And yes, of course,those are just words, they don't come close to it at all. When I say things like"I am That" or "everything is God", of coursewe're back into duality again

(inside vs. outside, this vs. that, God vs. not-God). Its unavoidable when

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using language. What those words are really trying to point to is the ineffableisnessthat is this ... totally and completely and utterly beyond words.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. Over here, there is a knowing thatnot a single word Jeff writes or says about this could ever be true. Thewonder of this, the aliveness of whats happening, cannot be spoken of...and yet still, as I always say, why not try. The Tao that can be named is notthe eternal Name, but that doesnt stop you from writing the Tao Te Ching.When the whygoes, all youre left with is the why not, and thats the freedomin this expression.

Let me tell you a little story. In the beginning, trees were trees, mountainswere mountains, and rivers were rivers. Then, after years of all sorts ofmind-blowing spiritual experiences, thinking that I was God, that everything

was Buddha, etc, there was, finally, a falling-away of all of those concepts, ofevery concept known to man. Finally, after a lifetime of words, there wereno more words. No more words for this. What was seen is that everythingis One (and yes, of course, not even that, because everything is One, well,that would just be another concept too!) There wasnt even that. Not eveneverything is One. There was nothing. No, actually, there wasnt evennothing but thats the word that comes closest. For a long while thenothingness of everything was the only reality. There had been a falling intothe Void. Trees were no longer trees, mountains were no longer mountains,and rivers were no longer rivers. There was nothing. No me. No you. Noworld. No past. No future. Nothing to get. No meaning. No point.

But of course it cannot stop there. "I am nothing" or "there is nothing" thats still totally dualistic. What happened then is that nothing collapsedinto everything, and that's as close as I can come in words. The emptinessfinally revealed itself to be total fullness. The detachment and pointlessness(nothing matters! Everything is meaningless!) gave way to a fullness ofbeing, to a joy beyond words, a contentment without a name. You could saythat Jeff died. The seeker died. The longing for something moredied.

You see, there was a time, before the books and the talks, where I had falleninto the "everything is pointless, there is nothing I can do" trap and, well,for hours and days on end, I would just walk around my home town ofOxford, and there was absolutely nothing in existence, absolutely nothinghappening at all. There was no world, no past or future, nothing. Only theVoid. And it was all so very grey and lacking in joy. And I was so very, veryseriousabout something called spirituality (and, funnily enough, it was atthis time that I also believed I was awakened!). Herman Hesse, in his bookSteppenwolf, summed it up as follows:

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"I [find] neither home nor company, nothing but a seat from which toview a stage where strange people [play] strange parts Time and theworld, money and power belong to the small people and the shallowpeople. To the rest, to the realmen, belongs nothing.

I thought I was a realman, not one of those ignorant fools who were stilllost in the relative world (whatever that meant). Back then, I thought thiswas what nonduality was all about. But then (and I cannot really say whenbecause it doesnt happen in time), after much agony, there was a collapse ofthe nothing into everything, and of course, about this I cannot really say a word. Even the absolute detachment from life, even that had beencompletely dualistic. It takes a person to be detached, and a world to bedetached from. The "final" seeing (and I dont like to call it that, but itll dofor now) was the deathof the person, the person who could be detached or

not, and a revelation (for no-one) that it was all a dance, a play, ALL of it,ALL of it, including all the bits that Jeff had rejected, including that nastyrelative world that was so full of ignorance and people who were unawareof their true nature (whatever that meant). There was a plunge into theabsolute mystery of it all.... totally beyond words, totally beyond language.For so long there had been a deadness, a lack of joy, a sitting-back andwatching the world go by without me. It had been such a denial of therelative, a denial of the world. The world had become the enemy, because itwasnt essentially real. Everyday human interactions had lost their meaning,

because there were no others. After a lifetime of misery and self-consciousness ithad initially been a relief to be free from the world of form. But andheres what I couldnt see then the nothingness had just become another trap. Thefreedom Id initially found in the emptiness had morphed into a prison.Freedom in the formless had become a denialof form. But, as the BuddhistHeart Sutra has been reminding us for thousands of years:

Form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness doesnot differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whateveris form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form

There had been a resting in Emptiness. But it still had not been seen inclarity that Emptiness was Form. There was still a me there, subtlydenying life. Pretending he was more spiritual or awake than others,feeling smug and safe, and somewhat arrogant, but secretly joyless in hisEmptiness.

Then one day, it all collapsed. The denial of form could not hold itself up. Icannot put it into words, but if I could, it would be something like this. Jeff,after another day of walking through Oxford, after another day of absolutely

nothing, another day of detachment from the world, collapsed on the grassin Christ Church Meadow, and looked up at a shaft of sunlight coming

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through the branches of a tree. And Life said LIVE, DAMN IT, LIVE! The emptiness collapsed into the form. The form collapsed into theemptiness. And then there was neither form nor emptiness. There was justTHIS, with no way of knowing anymore what this is. The person dissolved

into wonder. Trees were once again trees. Mountains were once againmountains. Rivers were once again rivers. Everything fell back into itsrightful place. A chair was allowed to be a chair again (whilst at the sametime, of course, it was the divine expression, it was Oneness playing thegame of being a chair.) A cup of tea could be a cup of tea. There was aplunge back into the world, even though it was only an apparent world, eventhough it was all a dream, even though there was no me, and no others.Suddenly, after years of being detached and wanting to be detached, therewas a relaxation into what is. The whole thing collapsed back into a veryordinary life. But the seeking was dead.

What iswas seen to be the miracle. And it was always enough. The very ideaof spirituality went out the window. That concept was no longer needed.Concepts of nothingness and awakening and nonduality went out thewindow. Concepts of practices and goals and future attainment went out thewindow. Why? Because the grass was enough. The tree was enough. Theground beneath my feet was enough. I fell in love with solid ground, or solidground fell in love with itself, and the seeking of a lifetime was at an end. AsRamana Maharshi said:

The world is illusory. Brahman alone is real. Brahman is the world.

Brahman was the world, and it was all over.

Or, as Zen master Joho exclaimed:

Fathomed at last!Ocean's dried. Void burst.Without an obstacle in sight,It's everywhere!

*

When I write things like "there is nothing to get", it is not a teaching. It is anattempt to sharethis seeing. I am not a teacher, I could never see myself asthat, because there is no longer any reference point here. I have no way ofknowing who I am, because it is not possible to separate myself frommyself, look back at myself and say what that is. Because I am nothing, Ineither teacher nor student. I am whatever you say I am. And so I ameverything too. Call me teacher, call me friend, or call me nothing at all. You

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are what I am, and I am what you are. And it all ends there, in an intimacythats beyond words.

There is nothing to get. Its not a teaching. It is a confession [read JerryKatz on nonduality.com for more on the idea of confession vs. teaching].What is seen here(and I can only ever speak about what is seen here) is thatthere is nothing to get (because THIS is the miracle). There is nothing to do(because THIS is the miracle). Yes, that can be heard in the wrong way. Butthere is also the possibility that what is reallybeing communicated, what isreallybeing pointed to by those words, will be heard. That resonance, thatrecognition is possible. Perhaps thats why the sharing happens. I dontknow.

No, I cannot see myself as a teacher. I just offer the words in the books and

talks and nothing more. I just sing my song. The bird tweets, the catmiaows, and this mind-body organism (or whatever the hell it is) sometimesblabs on about nonduality. There are many who will take one look at thosebooks and turn away. There are others who will read them and love them. Ilove that people walk away, and that people stay ... that's their freedom.Freedom to stay, freedom to go. Freedom to listen, freedom to walk away.

*

When you are talking about nonduality, you are always talking aboutsomething that cannot be spoken of. If I say "this is already complete andthere is nothing to get", I get accused of falling into the absolute. If I say"there is a practice, there is something you can do to get closer to this", I getaccused by the nonduality fundamentalists (those who have turnednonduality into their new religion) of believing in the relative. The Buddhahimself said:

Discard, not only conceptions of one's own selfhood and otherselves but also all ideas about the non-existence of such

conceptions.

When we cling to ideas of self, or ideas of no-self, we are falling into duality.After years of falling into so many conceptual traps, this is now seen clearlyover here (there was a ferocious and violent and intellect here, and itwouldnt let me get away with anything!) and so these days, when I saythere is nothing to do what is also seen is that the moment that turns intoa belief, it is no longer true. That is why the guy who believes that "there isnothing to do" and stays in bed all day has not really been listening. Thepointers have become concepts for him, they have hardened into beliefs,and led to stagnation. This is such a common trap. I know, Ive been there.

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There are people out there who trulybelievethat there is no person, no self.They trulybelievethat there is nothing to get. They trulybelievethat there is nofuture, no Africa, no planet Earth. The beliefis the problem. Once its turnedinto a belief, its stagnated. Its a person with a belief. Its my belief versus

your belief. And theres no end to it.In the clear seeing that there is nothing to do (because THIS is alreadycomplete), stagnation goes out the window. What I find is that there can bea springing out of bed, the heart fully open to another day of not knowing.Nothing to do just a concept. Something to do another concept.Nagarjuna said:

To say "it is" is to grasp for permanence.To say "it is not" is to grasp at nihilism.

Therefore a wise personDoes not say "it is" or "it is not".

And Bodhidharma:

Whoever knows that the mind is a fiction and devoid of anythingreal knows that his own mind neither exists nor doesn't exist. Mortalskeep creating the mind, claiming it exists. And Immortals keepnegating the mind, claiming it doesn't exist.

Mind exists, mind doesnt exist. Nothing to do, something to do. Practice,no practice. Past, no past. Self, no self. No need to stick to either polarity, oreven negate both polarities. It happens so often: people go to see nondualityteachers (or non-teachers), and hear that there is nothing they can do, sothey give up and sometimes get very depressed. But look: part of the danceis that on this astonishing planet there are a million things to do, or so it would seem! This world as every child knows is an adventureplayground. It neither exists nor doesnt exist, but either way its a play. Andso the whole thing ends in the absolute paradox of it all. Nothing to do, lots

to do. Nothing, something. Self, no self. There is nobody, there issomebody.The opposites collapse into each other, and what is seen isthat nonduality could never be understood. Run a million miles fromanyone who claims to understand this! This is a plunge into the mystery,totally beyond words. That is what all the words in all the books are reallypointing to.

And then, far from being depressing, words such as "this is it" and "there isno path" are all seen to be pointing to this liberation, this unconditionallove. And its seen that they always were pointing to that we just couldnt

see it at the time. Yes, nothing to get, because it's all HERE. The intimacyand unconditional love that was always sought are seen to be right HERE.

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Until then, yes there is the danger that those words could be taken thewrong way (youre saying that its all Oneness, so murder must also beOneness, so I could just go and kill someone and thats okay because its allOneness, right?). And I am very clear about this in the meetings (only

recently we went into this at great length in one of our London meetings).Yes, there is that danger, but there is also this possibility: that what is beingsaid will be heard, reallyheard. It is that sharing (not teaching, remember,because I cannot see you as separate from me) that is being pointed to.

And then the whole duality/nonduality paradox is resolved, and it is seenthat there never was a paradox in the first place. The seeing is that Onenessmanifests itself as apparently separate beings. Things go on appearing to beseparate, whilst at the same time they are all manifestations of the whole. Itsthe divine dance, its the cosmic entertainment, its lila, its nothing being

everything.And yes, that could all remain on a purely intellectual level. But what isbeing pointed to here is the seeing(not just intellectual understanding) of thisin clarity, and in that seeing, all questions (which always point towards afuture that never arrives) dissolve and what is left, you have no way ofknowing.

*

When this was first seen, there were no words. I couldn't say the first thingabout this. Not a bloody word. It has taken years for the words to return.

There was a time I could not even use the word "I" because it felt like a lie(an "I" separate from the whole! How absurd!). But in time (yes, the so-called relative world is honoured here!) the words came back, and there wastalking and writing about this all done with a deep knowing that themoment Jeff spoke about this, people would misinterpret andmisunderstand, and that it would even anger and frustrate some people, butthat was part of the play too. The Tao cannot be told, and, well the momentyou speak about it, youre into the world of words, the world ofinterpretation and misinterpretation, the world of truth and falsehood, the

world of a thousand things. Youre into the world of time and space, andyou and me, and yin and yang. And that, perhaps, could become a goodreason to never speak about this, ever again. But not speaking about this,well, that could become another religion. The religion of silence. But thisembraces both silence and noise, and, as the story goes, one day, for nogood reason, Jeff began to write and speak about it...

This has always been seen as a sharing, in openness and friendship and ofcourse I'm only ever sharing with myself. So the mirage of separation goeson, but all the while it is known: there is no separation at all. Yes, it all ends

in the mystery, in absolute love. How can I communicate to you theintimacy and freedom and peace and emptiness and fullness of just sitting

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on a chair, right now? Of just breathing, just sounds happening? The isnessof this will never be spoken of, and yet it continues to shine, moment bymoment, although there are no separate moments at all.

And so the paradox is resolved here, in the absolutely simplicity and wonderof what is. In breathing happening, in noises in the room, in the warmth ofmy mug of tea, in the crunch of the biscuits, in the crumbs falling onto mytrousers. The search of a lifetime ends here, and there is only gratitude forthe mug of tea, for the biscuit, for this, as it is. Nobody drinks the tea,nobody eats the biscuit, and nobody is typing these words, but still, what amiracle it all is, and how crazy (and innocent in my craziness) I was all thoseyears, looking for something more than this, when everything I ever neededwas right here. Right here, in the place where I am not.

Jeff Fosters website is:

www.lifewithoutacentre.com

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http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/