my story

Preface

It’s tricky using words to describe nonduality, in fact words can only be used to “point” to non-duality. All duality, which means all appearances and sensations of life, are pointers to the nonduality beyond life. Words are used in this book to describe the way duality has revealed it’s non-duality and vice versa in my experience. In other words there is no separate self, not two (nondual), only wholeness. Some nondual writers avoid using first person language. For example they might say “Tammy’s story” rather than “my story” or “it was realized” rather than “I realized”. I understand and relate to this style of speaking. However it can be awkward as a reader and frustrating for those who do not understand this preference. So I’ve tried to stay with first person language in this book. I want readers to know that I recognize the contradiction inherent in using first person language when pointing to the reality of no separation. But all language presents a paradox to nonduality. It’s actually quite comical that words seem to arise from nothing, attempt to describe nothing, then return back to nothing. In essence words are also nothing, simply movement with no center or location.

Simply a story

For some there seems to be a conscious path of realizing nonduality, for others it seems to come out of the blue, and for me it was a combination but more of the latter. We could say that all of life is a path to realizing nonduality, which is simply a living realization that this moment is already whole and it is all there is. When you see what nonduality is all about, you see that all stories have the exact same ending. For me, the direct understanding of wholeness is far more miraculous and interesting to try to write about than any story of realization. I am really drawn to write about what is beyond all stories. When all the stories of a separate self are seen through, it is so clear that what we were searching for was there all along throughout the story. No story can produce what is called awakening or enlightenment. It is truly already the case throughout all stories. Being alive can only be experienced in the clean freshness of this moment. Enlightenment is a shift from living a story to simply being alive.  

The funny thing about enlightenment and spiritual seeking stories is that they only seem to have a connection with realizing truth. At first it may seem like an individual is seeking enlightenment. For a period in my “awakening” story, I wanted so intensely to “wake up” and there was a strong belief that I was doing something to stay on a path that would make an awakening happen. At a point it became evident that I (as an individual) was never controlling a path of awakening and what I actually wanted had nothing to do with enlightenment. This was an early flash of seeing that there is no individual separate person who can “wake up” or “fall away” or do anything related to enlightenment. But at that time these words were not present and it just felt like there was some process happening that was completely out of my control. This experience was quite disturbing. There seemed to be a process happening but it also seemed that I was not controlling it; that I could do nothing to make it happen and more disturbingly that I could do nothing to stop it from happening.

It looked like a process that appeared to have stages. Of course this is now known to be an illusion, simply another story. But it seemed like there was first a person who wanted something called enlightenment, awakening, or freedom. This person seemed to be pushing a process of awakening and reaching for some final boom experience. Then there was a person realizing that enlightenment is not about an individual person, that is no way to get enlightened as a person. This looked like a person who was faced with a cliff and it seemed that I would have to sacrifice myself in order to “have” this thing that I thought I wanted so badly. This “phase” looked like a person who was facing death truly. I thought I wanted enlightenment until I realized that enlightenment is the end of me. Stories are who we think we are and all stories get seen through in enlightenment. We could almost say that “conscious” spiritual paths are unconscious attempts to prolong a belief in separation, which is fading on its own. Perhaps spiritual paths are actually the mind clinging to belief systems pretending there is a participant in some enlightenment process. At a certain point all identity goes, even the idea that someone is waking up or becoming enlightened.

The next “stage” seemed to collapse the whole idea of stages. From here it is seen that there never was a person waking up or a person falling away. So there never was a person facing death; follow this through and you will see that death itself is an idea, just a story as well. Ultimately, the person is a story, the lifetime is a story, the path is a story, awakening is a story, and this now a person writing and a person reading is also a story.

That said, here’s what the story of a path of realization was like for me.

I spent a lot of time alone as a young child. My parents divorced almost before I can remember and I lived with both of them individually. They also both worked full time so there were many hours each days when I was alone at home or as I preferred outside in the woods. I can remember a sense of relating to something that seemed inward or internal but that also seemed to permeate the woods. I would talk to this “presence” both internally and externally. I was not around many or any people during these times but there was never a sense of aloneness. With the words I have today, simple relating was happening self to self. I was not raised with any religion although both of my parents were spiritual and there were various books about consciousness and enlightenment and pictures of gurus lying around both of their homes. My parents’ spiritual seeking seemed private and they didn’t discuss it much with me.

Later in adolescence, I remember having religious questions that I approached very scientifically, like “what is god”. I was fortunate not to have any religious models or teachings, this allowed me to look for the answers directly rather than relying on what someone told me. I remember reflecting to myself that atheism made no sense at all because my spirit or soul was so tangibly obvious. I could tell that this spirit was not bound to my particular form and I could tell that it was not limited by birth/death. Today I know that this sense of a spirit that is prior to birth has no boundaries at all. In other words it doesn’t reside inside of the body. It’s more like the body resides inside of it, but that’s not exactly right either. The label of spirit or soul is simply the mind’s way of labeling a sense of existence that includes all of consciousness. When the mental construct of soul or spirit is not being used to understand this sense, it can be revealed to have no boundaries and is the same for everyone. I’m not saying it has the same qualities for every person, rather it is the same.

I had typical teenage problems and rebellions. I was drawn to intense long-term relationships and certain drug experiences. Interestingly, I had a strong desire to try psychedelics but I knew that I needed to wait until I was “ready” and that this readiness would be around age 20. Sure enough I started experimenting at about 20 years old. I imagined a particular psychedelic experience and was quite disappointed when I didn’t get the effect I expected. The first few times I tried LSD and mushrooms, I lost identity completely and everything became totally still. My best friend was describing wild visual effects and beautiful sensations while I was a state of complete emptiness. The experience of stillness was terrifying but only after the drug wore off. I remember my friends saying, “maybe hallucinogens are not for you,” which I found enraging because I believed there was something I was supposed to get from psychedelics.

I had just turned 22 and was devastated from the ending of an intense love relationship. I was growing apart from my social group and feeling less drawn to drugs. My mother invited me to a meditation/awakening group that she was leading. After decades of spiritual seeking and many awakening experiences, my mother was pretty clear as a teacher. As soon as I heard the term enlightenment, awakening, liberation (not sure which label they used) it was like I remembered the meaning of life. I remember saying to myself “Oh yeah! That’s right. This is what life is all about”. This was a resonance the mind could not understand.

During one of the first times I sat in meditation, my mind created a wall of unanswerable questions. There was a deep resonance and my mind wanted to relax but first it had to know, “If separation is an illusion, why does separation appear at all? Why does life happen at all?” My mind was saying, “I will not let go unless I have this answer!” This question, ultimately “WHY?!” was thrust deep into myself and I had an experience that felt like all the energy (which means everything) was sucked away leaving expansive spaciousness that had no qualities. From there an answer emerged, “it’s me”. From there my question was completely resolved. Everything seemed to come back together with a disturbing feeling of despair; “returning” to form seemed painful since my form was so contracted at that time. My mind was also very confused because the answer didn’t make sense but there was no doubt that it did indeed resolve the question.

Today I can see that all questions about purpose, meaning, or source are ultimately answered this way, “it’s me”. When these sorts of questions (i.e., the meaning of life) are directed into the deepest sense of self rather than the mind, the answer/resolution does not come from duality. For something to have purpose, meaning, or source there must be duality. At least two things need to exist for purpose (1-something and 2-something’s purpose) or source (1-something and 2-something’s source). At what seems to be the “deepest level,” there is no duality and questions do not exist.

It was summer of 2002 and the start of an obsession that could also be called my spiritual path. I was 22 years old and finishing my last year of undergrad. I had naturally withdrawn from friends and ended a love relationship. I spent the next 9 months or so doing the absolute minimum in work and school and every moment was devoted to spiritual practices. I was not disciplined as a seeker but I was completely devoted. I had no practice routine but every moment was spent turning attention away from thoughts and onto “the present moment”. I did a lot of meditating, reading spiritual texts, and using self-inquiries such as “who am I”. Most of the books I read were by Indian gurus such as Ramana Maharaj, Papaji, Nisargatta, and some western teachers such as Ganagji and Eckhart Tolle. I tried some asceticism (although I did not have this word) such as getting rid of what I thought were distractions from “this moment” such as TV, radio, drugs, alcohol, caffeine, etc. I believed that being really really present and allowing attention to rest only on the present moment would facilitate an awakening. During this time, I had some phenomenal experiences having to do with energy, light, mystical states, dark nights, etc. I had a practice of trying not to resist anything and there were moments when I thought my body would literally die if I opened to certain feelings, sensations, or beliefs.

In February 2003, I was walking to class and I can’t remember if there was any spiritual practice happening but it’s likely that attention was being turned “inward” or “on the present moment”. Either way, what was seen had nothing to do with practice. Somehow there was a noticing of a present awareness that has always been looking through these eyes. This was a very very simple noticing of something already known to be who I am. This was followed by deep laughter about how silly the searching is. Of course! How could this be overlooked? Somehow I noticed what looks out of these eyes and it was known clearly to be what I had been searching for. Clearly, this present awareness had always been there and known already. It had simply not been seen in this way or noticed as significant before. So as I write more it may sound like it was something new. There was a reveling in it that was new, but it cannot be new like a new state of consciousness.

This present awareness is what I seemed to be relating with as a child, it is what I called my soul. It is this moment and all the appearances and sensations that seem to arise in this moment. We “know” it already but there are mental constructs/labels that make it seem fragmented or separated. Mental constructs/labels make us seem separate from it. Present awareness is already whole and separation is only the way the mind interprets appearances, such as the images of me and you. Life is already whole, it actually cannot be fragmented, although the images of life may seem separate. Separation is only an appearance. It is quite a mystery how life can imagine separation, realize that it is imagining separation, and somehow realize that separation is made of and appearing within wholeness. And in the absence of everything, we already know that which is prior to life.     

The enlightenment that I point to is not a verb or an experience that happens. But this experience of seeing present awareness was a boom moment for me. This moment fundamentally changed the experience of being a person named Tammy. It had a fundamental, I believe chemical, effect on my body and brain that shifted the whole perspective and there has not been a sense of separation like before that moment. What was seen was enlightenment itself and it was known to have been there all along. Enlightenment is truly already the case, we are already that. We are already enlightenment, but not necessarily enlightened. I’m not sure if I would use the word enlightened at all, unless perhaps referring to the minds that have recognized that everything is already enlightenment itself; minds that recognize that enlightenment is already everything and the absence of everything. Funny, the moment my mind recognized this was on Valentine’s Day, which I remember because it was the busiest day of the year at the restaurant where I worked. So I went to work on the busiest day and had the experience of floating through the evening while this present awareness seemed to permeate everything. That night I walked around the neighborhood noticing that this awareness is not just what looks through these eyes, but clearly everything else as well. I walked around looking at everything as if to see if it was really everything. I remember being thrilled that it is also a police car (probably thrilling because of my anti-authority years). It seemed even more palpable within the eyes of others; looking simply looking at itself.

Today I call this present awareness simply life, others call it consciousness. We could also call it enlightenment, as if everything is made of enlightenment and the absence of everything is also enlightenment. So that there is no process of becoming enlightened except to recognize that everything is already enlightenment itself. Fortunately I had no word for it at that time, I was just walking around checking to see if it was indeed everywhere, or rather if everything was it. This awakening experience gradually seemed to settle and this present awareness seemed to shift into the background of everything. It was always there and seemed to be the backdrop to myself and all of life. It seemed like source was looking through these eyes and also somehow through everything else, both animate and inanimate.

Shortly after this awakening experience, I graduated college and went off to live at a holistic retreat center in upstate New York. What I thought would be a quiet meditative summer of resting into this “place” of no separation turned out to be a blissful summer romping around the mountains with new friends. When this ended I found myself back in my hometown with a lingering desire to try a medicinal plant called Ibogaine, which I heard was used to facilitate spiritual quests. I don’t remember much of this experience other than it was definitely not recreational. This African medicine is also know to be a serious cleanser and my body was in a purified state for weeks, which meant it was difficult to eat or drink. There was another subtle shift after this experience where I realized that the “backdrop” of present awareness is literally all there is. Even though this present awareness had been recognized everywhere and in everyone, there was still a lingering belief about another “place” where this awareness would dissolve after the body dies. This belief was seen through and I deeply realized that there is no place that opens up when the body dies. In other words, I deeply realized that this moment is all there is even after the body dies. Even using the word moment seems too much, it’s more like just this is all there is. The present backdrop, the present moment, this, was deeply known to be all there is both before and after the body with nothing other than or outside of it.

Something more should be noted here, which is very difficult to write about. During this time there was also a flash of knowing that there is something even beyond present awareness. Quite simply it is the absence of even present awareness, like in deep dreamless sleep. In other words, present awareness is an experiential sense of wholeness. But in order to notice or experience wholeness (present awareness), something beyond wholeness is required. Something must be beyond in order for me to recognize and speak about wholeness, oneness, existence, consciousness, presence, or awareness. I had a flash of curiosity about how I was able to recognize wholeness or no separation. The awakening experiences up to this point were powerful recognitions of no separation. But this was a different kind of realization. A flash of recognition that in order for oneness to exist there must be something even beyond oneness, beyond existence itself. Of course this is not something, it’s more like nothing and even less than that. It is absolutely the absence of everything; complete nonduality. Mysteriously it can be known because of everything, because it is the absence of everything. But everything does not need to disappear in order to “know” this, it is simply “what” is beyond or prior to everything. We could call it the void but that word usually creates images for the mind and this is beyond images of the mind.

Life carried on and in fall 2004 I met a guy who was by all objective and certainly by my subjective standards quite alluring. This was surprising and a bit disturbing since I was in love with “the path” and I didn’t see romance as part of “the path”. I was also not aware of any desire to date at that time. But we did date and when the time was ripe we got married. Funny how I tried to separate life from “the path”. Life continued on quite playfully for seven pleasant years, which included other experiences of accomplishing  (college, career, etc). By 2010, attention was being drawn again to the “backdrop” of existence. My mother to invited me to a spiritual retreat in North Carolina and I thought it would be a nice mother-daughter vacation. As it turned out, this was an intense 10-day silent retreat and the leader (Jac O’ Keeffe) was not there to play games in consciousness. Driving into the retreat center, I energetically knew this was not going to be a vacation. During the first meeting Jac directed someone to “place attention prior to consciousness”. I could see that Jac knew way more about this “prior to consciousness” than the flash of curiosity I had years back. I’m referring to that flash of recognition that in order for wholeness to exist, or more simply in order for existence, there must be something even beyond/prior to existence.

The other thing I noticed right away was that Jac was not experiencing wholeness or non-separation as a backdrop or background to everything. This is just a metaphor, but I felt as if my tail was sticking back in nothingness with the rest of my body clinging to tangible existence. Whereas for Jac it seemed there was no background or backdrop at all, just full surrender as nothingness. I knew that I was there to let go of existence fully and suddenly “I” was terrified. This is what nonduality really points to. Oneness is a beautiful realization and experience, much more expansive than the story of separation. But oneness is actually another story, albeit a story of freedom when compared to the story of separation.

Nondual means not-two but also not-one. Nonduality includes everything but is also beyond all experience and image. There is no way to perceive nonduality because it is also perception itself. We can only perceive appearances and sensations but we cannot perceive an absence. Nonduality can be deeply truly “known” as the absence of everything and this is a glorious absence. In the absence of everything, nonduality is already deeply known. We do not experience dreamless sleep but we already deeply know dreamless sleep. That doesn’t mean everything must disappear in order to know nonduality. It is already “not there” throughout all appearances. In fact the faculty that is able to “know” nonduality must be appearing in order to recognize it. In other words, if we did not already believe in duality or recognize separate others than we could not then realize duality as illusion and recognize nonduality.

On day two I talked to Jac and summarized my story. Her feedback was very simple, “try the word surrender…it’s really going to hurt if you don’t”. Her advice was right on. This was clearly happening on its own and it seemed out of the blue. The next few days were excruciating whenever there was resistance to what seemed to be a natural breaking down of all belief patterns. But unlike the path from 2002, there was so much compassion this time. It was like a little girl had to let go of her safety blanket, which happened to be the idea of herself and all of existence. But it was a soft gentle letting go. While belief systems were painfully dissolving before my eyes, there was also incredible compassion and deep appreciation for all my stories and all the stories of existence.   

There’s no way to recount everything that happened during that week, so I’ll stick to a few highlights. I found myself one evening sitting up on a hill overlooking the mountain range. There was a belief that I had climbed that hill to have another “blacking out” experience. Others were talking about this, so I thought it might need to happen for me as well. I’m sitting there opening to the possibility of everything completely disappearing and I suddenly noticed how beautiful the mountains “appeared”. A question arose similar to the questions that seemed to start this whole spiritual story, “if those mountains are not real, why do they look so real?” That was it! I realized the mountains literally only appear separate and distant. I could not say anything else about the reality of those mountains other than they look real; they are appearing. There is no other proof of their separate reality. So it was known that everything is literally simply an appearance. Everything that seems within existence and existence itself simply appears. In (nondual) reality there is only this moment with no boundary and no location. Just “prior” to this moment there is the absence of this moment, which actually includes the appearance of this moment. From just prior to this moment, all of existence is seen as simple reflections on this moment, which is also a simply a reflection from the absence of everything. This recognition broke all residual ideas about the appearance of separation. Looking out I could no longer see separation, I could only remember the way I had interpreted appearance to mean separation. Yet there was a subtle residual thread of identification with the appearance of Tammy. I brought this to Jac in private and explained how I could see that everything is simply an appearance but there was some identification with the appearance of Tammy. She simply said, “if everything is an appearance, why does it matter what appears?” Somehow that undid the rest.

Later in the week with Jac, there was a meeting where she discussed having no reference point. After this meeting, I listened to her pointer and did not allow attention to rest on anything. At first it was like a process of elimination; simply attention controlling its own movement. I was familiar with shifting attention away from thought and usually it would land deep into the body. Directing attention into the body had been a useful tool for grounding attention with the appearances of the present environment. But what I heard was to have no reference at all. In other words, let attention rest on no-thing (no appearance) so attention was shifted off of all external and off all internal. This can seem like attention is actually resting on nothingness, but it’s more like attention dissolves into pure awareness with no focus. This went on for at least a full day and night. It was a very powerful exercise that helped to reveal remaining “threads” of identification.

It was also a powerful lesson in the complex layering of thought. It was like all allegiance was with open awareness despite the appearance of thought. This revealed that some thoughts were believed to be more real than others, because the allegiance would get more powerful when more believable thought arose. It was also seen that there were thoughts posing as myself talking and not recognized as thought at all. Internal dialogues such as self to self or spiritual teacher such as Jac talking to me were realized to be simply thoughts no more significant than a dialogue about the weather. I could see that thoughts about spirituality and nonduality were still believed in and were keeping a subtle separate identity intact. In other words it was time to let go of the story of nonduality as well. It seems like the last remaining reference point was spiritual/nondual wisdom. Essentially, this exercise seemed to release attachment to ALL mental movement, which included the story of nonduality. Today there are still thoughts and attention still rests on thoughts quite often but there is no belief that ANY thought is reality.

On one of the last days with Jac, I had a surrendering experience that revealed the extraordinary simplicity of what letting go really means. Seems important to preface this by explaining that I was identified with western culture, even as a spiritual seeker. Maybe not conventional western culture but I had never traveled overseas and didn’t feel a particular kinship to eastern spiritual culture. There was something about Jac being a western (Irish) woman that pleased my identity. So when it looked like I was falling apart in what I considered to be an Eastern manner, I found it quite disturbing. One of the other group members was talking with Jac about a disturbing dream he had the night before and how he wanted to give her the disturbance. He explained that he hadn’t given it to her because he was afraid that it might hurt her. But Jac invited him to give anything to her and she would deal with it just fine. I found this quite humorous because I believed that there was no-one there for Jac so giving her anything would be simply giving it away, releasing it back into nothingness. There was also a bit of a comparison going on between where “I was on the path” and where this other participant was; a sort of a spiritual status game.

Shortly after listening to their dialogue, I too was struck by an immense movement to give everything to Jac. I could not stop myself from staring at her, through her, and it literally felt as though the entire world, all of life and consciousness was being stripped from Tammy and given to Jac. Simultaneously I could deeply see that Jac was not there and that I was giving everything to myself literally. It was as if everything was being stripped from this little contraction called Tammy and returning back to the source, which was clearly already my own self. I could see that Jac’s form was simply beautifully a reflection of source. This experience carried through the meeting, I was not able to stop it nor did I want to. The meeting ended, Jac and everyone left and I found myself outside sitting on the grass with this experience. My body decided to do something very unfamiliar and it descended completely prostrate on the ground.

Prostration would have been too embarrassing for the western Tammy, but this identification had already released. In this prostrate position there was a complete relaxation, a true surrender and a deep silent chuckle. This relaxation/surrender is not something experienced in the body like through breathing or any bodily exercise. The body relaxes totally, an energetic sense of being separate relaxes totally and there is a direct experience of what is already surrendered relaxation itself. It became so obvious that the individual separate self named Tammy had simply been an energetic bodily contraction. Lying there prostrate, it was clear that the body and the personality are here and yet no longer perceived as separate at all from reality. No self and no backdrop. Separation is a simple perception based on a belief that can be seen through and “dissolve” completely in a simple movement of surrender. The body and the personality/mind are simple innocent reflections on this timeless moment.

We had one more day with Jac. I could have stayed there forever but after the surrendering experience there was clearly no reason to. I don’t know if I’ll ever see Jac or even communicate with her again but there will always be huge gratitude. Not necessarily for her teaching because she actually said very little to me. My deep gratitude is for her being an ultimate pointer to my own self. Fundamentally there is no Jac, no Tammy. Nonetheless there is huge gratitude for these profoundly beautiful stories. Returning home was simple and seamless. I’ve shared everything with my husband who seems to think it’s all “really great”. Disintegration seemed to continue for awhile as the appearances of home and work life returned. More recently there’s been an experience of being deeply engaged with the beauty and messiness of life. Words about nonduality started to appear a few months after the retreat and this writing is the result of those words.  

Seems like a brief summary might work here. Overall, the experience of recognizing the truth of enlightenment appeared to happen in a couple stages for me. Understanding and knowing of wholeness, in other words an experiential wisdom was revealed first. In 2003 there was a realization of a timeless presence that is both inside and outside all at once; wholeness was seen and directly experientially known. This present awareness remained apparent but was experienced as the background to everything. This background reality was known for years while separation still seemed to be something stronger than simply an appearance or experience. It was as if my mind was creating a subtle boundary between the appearance of Tammy and the “bigger” picture of wholeness. In 2011 with Jac, the residual beliefs that maintained an imaginary boundary between Tammy and wholeness released. In other words I recognized that wholeness is not just a present background, rather it is the foreground, the background, and the absence of it all.

There are a lot of beautiful ways to describe the recognition of nondual reality, for example “there is no self, there is only self, I am nothing, I am everything, the self fell away, the self became everything”. I appreciate these pointers, but they all seem subtly off the mark from this perspective. It’s more like a contraction relaxed and Tammy is still here but not seen to be or experienced to be something other than a reflection on this moment. Kind of like if you make a fist and release the fist. Nothing fundamentally changes, the hand is still there but the fist is released. Perhaps the hand believed it was separate from the body because of a contracted feeling, the result of making a fist. Once the fist is released the hand can directly experience that it is not separate from the body. Of course this is not quite right either, the separate self is not an extension of nonduality like the hand seems to extend from the body. The separate self is nonduality all along, simply the exact same thing. Nonduality has no borders, no location and neither do the reflections (self/other) within nonduality. There are only appearances and sensations happening now. Actually what we call the now is ultimately the absence of everything, just prior to appearance and sensation.

It’s difficult to describe what life is like today. There is no general theme. Appearances and sensations are always changing. The reference point is mysterious. It’s like there is no reference point, and there is a reference point that never changes, and there is a reference point that is always changing. General questions like, “how’s it going” only really make sense to a particular moment like, “there is happiness or sadness right now”. There is a strange underlying sense of being in love with everything, even pain. It’s definitely not like everything is always blissful. It’s just that there isn’t anyone believing that pain and suffering are somehow not supposed to happen. There is also a deep acceptance that all states must change so there is no point at all in pulling or pushing. It’s like a heart-broken or opened-heart surrender to the wonder of this whole experience of life. There is usually a lot of thought and attention either “goes along” or the thoughts are like little birds chirping in the background. Most often life seems extraordinarily still and simple (walking the dogs, taking a nap, doing laundry, going to work, watching TV, eating, playing, etc.). More recently there has been an experience of more intense energetic movements (simply a fuller range of emotion), which is a rich powerful experience. But ultimately, life is simply appearances and sensations happening now, happening for no one, happening for me, happening for truth.