What’s Happening Is Uncleavable
Non-duality without the bullshit
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I get so many emails and messages about this, and I feel like I’m continually answering the same question. What’s happening is all there is. It’s wholeness and fulfillment. There’s nothing beyond it, nothing inside of it, no other place, and no other time. It’s also completely nonseparate, with no witness and it’s absolutely non-conscious. There’s no self at all in it, not a regular self and not some fancy Self with a big “S.”
Sure, there seems to be a character called Duncan and there seems to be a world with laws of physics and stuff going on, but that’s the uncleavable nonseparation appearing either as perceptions of those things or as thoughts about those things.
But there is no perceiver, there is no subject and therefore no objects. There’s not a subject, at the center of what’s happening, peering out into the world. There is only a whole, immediate happening.
I totally get how it can not seem to be this way. There’s this slightly perverse, and possibly rare, state in which what’s happening can be misperceived as fragmented into separate places and separate times, witnessed by a subject. From this strange perspective, yes, what’s happening is lifeless and limited. “There has to be more!” the illusory self seems to cry. But the crying is not being done by anyone. Sure, there’s crying. Sure, there’s seeking. So what?
There’s no real perspective, because there is no subject. What’s happening is actually perspectiveless.
There’s typing, and carrying water, and chopping wood, but it’s not personal; it’s not really about anyone. There’s no center to what’s happening, and no edge either. What’s happening is both boundless and centerless, and perfectly balanced.
The Tao is appearing as a memory of this first being revealed, as I sat on a cushion in a bedroom in Mountain View, California in 2001. Since then, there has been a repetition, a deepening, and an integration of this revelation. When Brahma appears as these thoughts, perhaps they convey some truth about the fundamental nature of reality.
Some time ago, a friend, someone who claims to be an expert on “nonduality,” became frustrated with me via a text thread because I would not admit…
