Tollifson - Nothing to Grasp

NOTHING TO GRASP

First edition published August 2012 by Non-Duality Press

Joan Tollifson2012

Non-Duality Press 2012

Author photo: David Lorenz Winston

Cover image: Joan Tollifson

Joan Tollifson has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as author of this work.

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the Publisher.

Non-Duality Press | PO Box 2228 | Salisbury | SP2 2GZ
United Kingdom

ISBN: 978-1-908664-24-2
www.non-dualitypress.org

Table of Contents

No matter what state dawns at this moment, can there be just that? Not a movement away, an escape into something that will provide what this state does not provide, or doesnt seem to provide: energy, zest, inspiration, joy, happiness, whatever. Just completely, unconditionally listening to whats here now, is that possible?

Toni Packer

That which is before you is it, in all its fullness, utterly complete. There is naught beside. Even if you go through all the stages of a Bodhisattvas progress toward Buddhahood, one by one; when at last, in a single flash, you attain to full realization, you will only be realizing the Buddha-Nature which has been with you all the time; and by all the foregoing stages you will have added to it nothing at all.

Huang Po

Preface

This book is about liberation. That doesnt mean the end of earthquakes, wars, bankruptcies, unemployment and cancer, and it doesnt mean a life without heartbreak, depression, anxiety or addiction. Its about recognizing that this is the Holy Reality, and that the Holy Reality is not somewhere else. Its the realization that the fundamental problem can only be resolved now, and that actually, there is nothing to resolve. Liberation is finding freedom in limitation and perfection in imperfection. It is the freedom to be exactly as we are. But what are we? What is real Here/Now? What is life all about? Who is reading these words? Is reading these words an individual choice, or is it the only possible activity of the whole universe at this moment, and is there a difference? Is there a practice that leads to liberation, or does that very idea reinforce the illusion that there is someone who is bound and that liberation is out there somewhere in the future? This book explores these questions.

It doesnt aim to provide answers, but rather, to undermine the assumptions behind the questions, to expose the imaginary nature of our apparent problems and dilemmas. This book invites an open listening and looking. It is not about acquiring new beliefs, but rather, it is an invitation to discover what requires no believing in order to be.

Joan Tollifson

Southern Oregon

Early Spring, 2012

Life

Life is continually living on life. Life appears in all sorts of forms and shapes. But it is still the same life, the same intelligence-energy. And you are that life.

Sailor Bob Adamson

The delicacy of late afternoon sunlight on a single trembling leaf, white clouds sliding through the blue sky, children being sold into prostitution, starving refugees fleeing a famine, incredible acts of generosity and kindness, the sinking ache of depression, oil spilling into the oceans. Life has so many facesbeautiful in one moment, excruciating in the next, horrific beyond comprehension, exquisite beyond words.

When it is beautiful, our only suffering is in knowing it wont last. When it is ugly, it can feel overwhelming and terrifying. Even if we dont have to personally experience or witness the most horrific things that are going on, even if we are completely ignorant of such things, we are in fact touched by all of them, for we are not really separate from the people in faraway places or from the oceans and the air we breathe. And we each have our own personal struggles with disappointment, loneliness, economic uncertainty, chronic pain, disability, addictionwhatever the particular mix is for each one of us.

How do we make sense of all this? Whats it all about? Is there any way out of our suffering or the world suffering, or any way to live through it without falling into destructive mind-states like despair, anger, hatred, and self-pity?

Like many others, I looked in different directions for answers to these questions. I tried alcohol and drugs, psychotherapy, political activism, meditation, satsang and radical nonduality. Finally I arrived at the place I had never left: the simplicity and immediacy of Here/Now this that is ever-present and utterly complete in spite of what happens in the movie of waking life and never because of what happens.

I still experience moments of heartbreak and discouragement, bursts of anger, waves of depression or anxiety, and periodic flare-ups of addictive and compulsive behaviors. Perhaps these things happen less frequently, less severely and for shorter duration, but they still happen. And the world at large is still full of suffering and injustice.

What does seem to have changed is that there has been a falling away of the thought-sense that I am a separate person in charge of my life who is going to eventually perfect myself or the world. There is the realization that life includes the whole show, the light and the dark, that none of it is personal, that all of it is happening effortlessly by itself in the only way possible, and that none of it has any solidity or permanence. There is also clarity about what the unnecessary exertion is that gives rise to so much of our human suffering and confusion, how we make ourselves miserable. As this has clarified, there has been a decrease in gullibility when the siren song of delusion appears. When I find myself thinking that something is lacking or that the fix is out there somewhere, there is a greater ability to relax into Here/Now, the place I have never really left.

Instead of trying to intentionally fix or improve myself or the world, I am more open to allowing everything to heal itself in its own way, in its own time, as it does anyway. There is a devotion to the immediacy of life exactly as it is right now, without superimposing any kind of spin. This bare intimacy is neither an effortful, goal-oriented, improvement-seeking exertion, nor is it any kind of passive or fatalistic resignation. It is an energetic aliveness, an openness that includes everything and sticks to nothing. It is not something you achieve or acquire, but simply the boundlessness, the bare being that is always already fully present right here, right now.

It is a great relief to realize that in this undivided happening, there is no perfection apart from the imperfection, that the light and the dark arise together like the crest and trough of the wave, that they cannot be pulled apart, and to appreciate the holiness of everything, exactly as it is, warts and all. The firm conviction that I know whats best for the universe seems thankfully to be evaporating. And when it does show up, it has more of an endearing qualityoh look, there goes Joan doing her little dance of concern again.

Ive discovered that there is no end to problems. When we cure one problem, a new one emerges. But this only becomes a source of suffering if we imagine it should or could be otherwise. In fact, the turbulent, cloudy weather is as integral to the whole as the clear, sunny weather. And its all a matter of perspective and point of view what we consider sunny. Every time we take a step or scratch our nose, we are killing and maiming millions of microorganisms, but we dont give this mass killing a second thought. We regard the extermination of a virus or a bunch of cancer cells as a positive thing, and we feel no moral outrage if one ant colony invades and enslaves another ant colony. But our human drama, by contrast, seems serious and full of meaning, and our particular point of view feels very real and right to us.