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You are here: Home / ZEN FITS / I got no floaters

I got no floaters

October 27, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

I got no grievances means as J. Krishnamurti once said when asked what his secret was: I don’t mind what happens. So I received a FB message from a “friend” who said I block idiots like you. Did a fruit fly that lives at my computer fly by, or was it a floater on my eye? 

If I minded that I have floaters on my retina, I would have a grievance when I noticed one. Damned floaters! I should not have floaters. 

But I do. I don’t mind what happens means that I have no complaint with what is. How could I not have floaters? Oh, I can imagine not having floaters because I remember when I didn’t have them. If I were to imagine myself not having floaters there would be a tension, a pain between the two poles of ME: one me with floaters and an imaginary me without floaters. Ah…there is the cause of my grievance: the wound or division in Me. 

Let there be ONE is the categorical imperative of the Cosmos. There can only be one cosmos, one of anything. Everything is one something. Each floater (I have a bunch of them) is one floater. So there can only be One Me. 

Did you see the movie Oblivion with Tom Cruise? What if there were two identical Toms? Can there be two you’s? Now, there cannot be two you’s. There can be two objects that are identical you’s, looking from your point of view, that is. And you could not tell them apart. But can there be two You’s from your viewpoint? In other words, there can only be one ViewPoint that is You. If there were two you’s, each with a viewpoint, there would still be the one you with your viewpoint. Get that? 

So when I notice a floater and I imagine myself not having a floater, and I have a grievance because I have the floater, where is the hurt in that? The hurt is not in the floater, that’s for sure. 

Which Me (I) am I? Am I the Me with the floater or the Me I imagine without the floater. I should say I instead of Me because it is my I that is divided into two I’s. 

So here lies the hurt of the grievance. I have a moment and I imagine myself not having this moment. I mind what is happening. I mind this moment because I can imagine a better or different moment. If I couldn’t or didn’t imagine a better moment, there would be no grievance, would there? 

Now, can I choose to not imagine a better moment? Well, if I were to choose to not imagine a better moment, then I would be imagining the choice or another better moment. So am I trapped? Is there no way out of the hurt from my grievance with myself, with the wound or hurt of the divided Me or self? 

When I see through and through that I cannot imagine my way out of having floaters, nor can I have an operation to cut out the floaters, well, I accept them. When I accept that the floaters are who I am, that’s it. I realize that it is futile to imagine not having floaters because I cannot have floaters, except in my fantasy. And when I see that the hurt in the floaters is caused by my imagining not having floaters…the floaters themselves drop off. I don’t even notice them, unless like right now I make an effort to notice them because I’m writing about them. 

Not minding something means that you barely notice it. You don’t highlight it. You do not underline it. You don’t pull it out of the background of the moment and think about it. You don’t give it a reality. You have no grievance with it, and then you have no grievance with yourself. Then you don’t mind what happens. 

When the Buddha said, when asked what he taught, he said I teach suffering and the cessation of suffering. What is suffering but grieving, the sense of loss, the feeling of being incomplete, not sufficient, inadequate, not whole? Yes, I want to be whole, said Manaford to the Russian Oligarch. He wanted to be free from grieving, from the sense of being divided and in debt. Being in debt is not being whole. Being in debt is a grievance. 

I am in debt: I should not be in debt. Now there are two Me’s or Selves. The one in debt, the one I image in the future that is not in debt. One is divided, the one that is alive this moment, and One that is whole in the future.  This division of my self into two equally valid but opposite selves is the cause of our suffering, said the Buddha. I must be ONE, but I am two, and that is IMPOSSIBLE. There cannot be two I’s or me’s, or two viewpoints. There can only be One viewpoint that is I. If there were two, then there would be two separate personalities, neither of whom could talk to the other. There cannot be two viewpoints that simultaneously exist as the One that is Two. 

Or can there? I think we have just stumbled upon the Third Noble Truth in Buddhism: the Cessation of separation of the two me’s. 

Now let’s look at the meaning of being OK. Being OK means being whole, being One. I am this moment, what is happening, I am this argument with the sister-in-law. If I’m not OK with this moment, then I split myself and imaging a better moment, a peaceful relationship, and I am OK with that, but I’m not OK with the present self. 

But I can never escape the present self. I hurt. And I blame the other or myself for the hurt, for not being able to be a better self that I imagine in the future. I have a grievance. I have lost my whole self. I have divided the One self and that is impossible, yet there it is. 

How can I be the two me’s simultaneous, which would heal the wound, which would restore me? I must accept that I am perfectly whole in this present moment, even though I in a fight with someone. This moment is it. Now, of course, I can have a better relationship with this person, but the one I’m in right now is the only possible one, yet it could be better. You see. 

I realize through and through that what is happening is OK. And when I accept what is happening without wanting it to be different, without dividing myself, the moment changes, it evolves in the intentional direction I desire, which is to have unity and wholeness in myself. 

You are the world and the world is you. When you are having an argument with the world, you are OK because you are that. Now, having accepted that you are already always whole, the discord in the moment naturally moves towards wholeness and unity because—now listen up—that is what you have already affirmed by accepting yourself as already always whole. 

When you have not divided yourself, you have not divided the world, and your world evolves always towards unity and wholeness without effort. You need to do nothing to attain wholeness because you are already always whole. Can you see right now the great liberation in this understanding? 

It takes a long time for the core principles of Buddhas Dharma to sink in, and that everything is impermanent is a core axiom. This means everything is loss because change is loss. What you believe is fixed is gone, dead and gone. 

The mantra of the Heart Sutra is Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate: Bodhi Svaha! Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone to the Other Shore; Oh, what an Awakening! 

You see…gone, gone is loss, loss, dead and gone, gone beyond going beyond…

How to you go beyond loss? If everything, if all life, all existence, for that matter, is dying, is changing—everything is a verb; there are no nouns—then there is no loss. 

If everything were the color green, there would be no green because you could not see it, and if you are not conscious of it, green does not exist…..unless there one just one dot of another color. Then with that one dot of contrast, Green would pop into existence. 

So how does Loss or death pop into existence? If you imagine one dot of immortality, if you imagine or have one thought of being fixed, then death and loss and suffering pops into mind and then exists. Just one thought, one inch divides heaven from earth, says Zen. 

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Ed is a Zen Writer and story teller who finds insights in the truth of his life in everyday mind and events. Learn more

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