Joan Tollifson - Painting the Sidewalk with Water: Talks and Dialogues About Non-Duality

Painting the Sidewalk with Water

Talks and Dialogs about Nonduality

Joan Tollifson

non-duality press

painting the sidewalk with water

First edition published October 2010 by Non-Duality Press

Joan Tollifson 2010

Non-Duality Press 2010

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
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ISBN: 978-0-9566432-1-6
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Neither the dharma world nor empty space is anything other than the painting of a picture.

Dogen

Consciousness itself is the greatest painter. The entire world is a picture.

Nisargadatta Maharaj

If you cannot find the Truth right where you are, where do you expect to find it?

Dogen

If you need time to achieve something, it must be false. The real is always with you; you need not wait to be what you are.

Nisargadatta Maharaj

Notes on the Text

This book is based on transcriptions of meetings I held between 2004 and 2006, mostly in Chicago, along with material from email exchanges, conversations and talks about nonduality from 2004 to the present. The material does not always appear in chronological order. In some cases I have edited and expanded upon the original material, often combining material from several different talks or exchanges. I have, of course, changed the names of anyone whose questions or comments are included and made other minor changes in their stories to protect their privacy.

I usually begin meetings with a period of silence before we begin talking, and I often say a few words to introduce this silent time. I dont think of this as meditation in any formal sense, but simply as an invitation to explore the timeless present moment. Ive included a few of these Invitations to Explore the Present Moment in the text, but most of them have been omitted. After the silence, I typically give a talk, open the meeting up for questions and dialog, and finally end with another few minutes of silence.

Any comments I make in this book about the teachings or views of other teachers are my own impressions and may not reflect that persons intention or how anyone else sees and hears their teaching. Please look and listen for yourself.

Joan Tollifson

Ashland, Oregon

June 2010

The Simplicity of What Is

This book points to the simplicity of what is, just as it is. Traffic sounds, smell of coffee, the humming of the refrigerator, sensations in the body, these words unfolding in awareness all of it the ever-changing, ever-present boundlessness of Here / Now from which nothing stands apart. This boundlessness never arises, never ceases, and never stays the same. No matter what is appearing Here / Now, in Reality, nothing is lacking and nothing is broken because no thing actually exists in the way we think it does. Reality is undivided seamless and whole.

Naming this undivided wholeness (calling it wholeness, unicity, Consciousness, awareness, the Self, the True Self, the One Mind, presence, Buddha Nature, emptiness, or any other name) is always potentially misleading because names create the mirage-like appearance of something in particular (this but not that). And what were talking about is not something. It is everything and no-thing. Emptiness is what remains when all our ideas, words and beliefs about life drop away. It is not nothing in a nihilistic sense. It is everything, just as it is.

This wholeness or emptiness is not some abstract idea or mystical state of consciousness, but simply the undeniable actuality of this moment the sounds of traffic, the hum of machinery, the song of a bird, the knowingness that this is and that you are here . This bare being, this aware presence, this present experiencing requires no belief and cannot be doubted. It is undeniable and unavoidable. What can be doubted are all the ideas, interpretations, and stories about this. All our confusion and suffering is in this conceptual overlay, never in Reality itself. This book is about seeing through the imaginary problem.

Words such as enlightenment or awakening point not to a one-time event that happened yesterday or that might happen tomorrow. Enlightenment is only Here / Now. And it is not really an event in the usual sense, nor is it a personal achievement. It is the falling away (or transparency) of all beliefs and ideas, the popping of the imaginary (conceptual) bubble of encapsulation and separation, the recognition of oneself as no-thing and everything.

There is no way to achieve this boundlessness because it is all there is. Here / Now is ever-present in spite of whatever happens in the movie of waking life, never because of what happens. Here / Now is not any particular experience, but rather, it is the experiencing that is present as every experience. Boundlessness includes everything and depends on nothing. It is what remains when the whole universe dissolves your face before your parents were born.

In case you might be tempted to imagine that I am in some way different from you, it is important that you know right from the outset that, as a person, I am absolutely and quintessentially human. I can be selfish, insensitive, controlling, opinionated, irritable, deluded, depressed, caught up in addictive habits, and generally flawed. In the dream-like movie of waking life, Joan has not stabilized permanently in any special awakened state or permanently lost all concern for her story, her self-image, or her survival. Unlike some who claim that a line in the sand was forever crossed on a particular date in time, no such final event has happened in Joans story. And, in fact, true enlightenment is not concerned at all with me being enlightened. Enlightenment is not the absence or banishment of all those negative experiences (depression, anxiety, addiction, anger, and so on), but rather, it is the recognition that none of this is personal and that none of it could be any different, in this moment, from exactly how it is. Enlightenment is the absence of the mirage-like me who needs the appearance to be any different from how it is. Enlightenment sees everything as unicity, and this seeing is always Now.

What is meant by Now? Any answer is too late. Any experience you can remember or describe is too late. Any notion of being in the Now or not being in the Now is too late. All experiences and states come and go, and all coming and going (and all staying) is too late. Now points to an immediacy that does not come and go, a presence that is equally present in (and as) every experience, the seeing that can never see itself, the being here that is impossible to deny. Think about it, and you immediately fall into confusion. Try not to think, and you seemingly confirm the imaginary problem. There is no way not to be here now. This is what you are . This is what is . This is all there is.

This (one, eternal, timeless) present moment is ever-present. What changes are the forms or the appearances that this formlessness takes (sensations, perceptions, experiences, thoughts, ideas, beliefs, stories everything perceivable and conceivable the whole movie of waking life the tumbling shapes in the kaleidoscope). What never comes and never goes is the immediacy of Here / Now this the alive presence, the awareness, the boundless unicity that has no beginning and no end. The words are never quite right, and they can only point to a wordless reality that is right here, right now immovable and all-inclusive.