True Meditation: Resting as Awareness
“Barrett, I deeply long for healing and relief. I know that forgiveness and acceptance will help the healing process. But I question whether the healing occurs in acceptance of that which causes suffering or rather in recognizing and resting within the perfection of the SELF (Awareness, being-ness, I Am-ness). The healing in other words becomes secondary to true identity and presence. I have tried this approach and am less burdened. But as soon as 'i' think that the suffering is gone, the mind creates doubt and torment. What would you say?”
Love.
If we have true healing, we have true identity and presence. If we do not have true healing, we have false identity and a false presence.
All forms of healing that do not lead us into true identity and presence are not healing. They are simply pain relievers, solaces.
Healing means ‘to be made whole.’ That is the definition of health; wholeness. There is no form of wholeness outside of the SELF (awareness, Am-ness, being-ness), outside of that which eternally is beyond the realm of that which comes and goes. That which appears ‘outside of the SELF’ is all subject to change. Amongst the changing, there is no true healing. Perhaps a lesson I have been taught recently may be of service to you.
It’s easy to get hung up; ‘I must rest in the SELF’, ‘I must rest in awareness.’ It’s easy to make it very effortful and mind-based. But true resting in the SELF, is the opposite of getting ‘hung up’ or effort. True resting in the SELF is the surrendering of experience; the allowing of experience to pass through us.
Every sensation, perception, thought and emotion passes through awareness—passes through ‘you’—like a cloud drifting through the sky. Suffering (that which needs healing) occurs when a particular sensation, perception, thought or emotion (a cloud) appears to ‘stick’ to us. If the experience was lovely, the mind then tries to hold it, to carry it, to identify with it. This leads to suffering because it is not there. If the experience was ugly, the mind tries to avoid it, look away from it, ignore it. This leads to suffering because, in looking away, the mind keeps thinking the experience that has passed is still there.
An experience 'sticking' to awareness is the experience of suffering. To rest in the SELF is to invite all experience—beautiful, ugly, pleasurable or painful—to pass through us. One of the most profound ways we 'invite experience to pass through us is forgiveness.