Is it true, as they sometimes say in the non-dual world, that whatever is happening is not happening to anyone?

It is true in three ways: it is not happening, it is not happening to anyone, and it is not happening to anyone.

It is not happening.  At least not in the conventional sense, the way it appears when filtered through stories. It is all the play of awakeness itself, taking temporary forms which appear real and solid - when filtered through stories and these are identified with.

It is not happening to anyone. Something is happening, not to someone or something, but within and as something. Within and as this field of awakeness and form, inherently absent of inside and outside, center and periphery, I and Other.

It is not happening to anyone. There is no separate self it is happening to, no I with an Other. It is all happening within the field of awakeness and form, already and always free from I and Other.

And it is not quite true in several ways.

It is happening. It is happening as the play of awakeness itself, taking on innumerable temporary forms within itself.

It is happening to someone. It is happening within, as, and - yes - to this field of awakeness and form.

It is happening to someone, although this one is the field of awakeness and form, and it is a one without an Other.

It is happening to someone. When there is a sense of a separate I, an I with an other, it certainly seems to happen to this separate I. It is experienced as happening to a separate I, and it is very real in that way.

Whenever there is an identification with stories, there is a sense of an I with and Other, and of Other happening to this I. It appears as very real, so it is real in that sense.

This is a topic that has come up in conversation a few times recently… usually when I describe a pattern I notice in own experience, and the other saying something along the lines of “don’t try to change the content of experience”. It is good advice, but also a little too general and simplistic.

When I notice what is already more true for me about what is experienced, the content of experience does change… almost as an unintended side-effect.

An emotion of sadness comes up. I bring attention to it in an heartfelt way, and the character of the experience changes to a tender sweetness. (I see that the initial experience of sadness came from resistance to the experience, when when there was a more wholehearted allowing of it, the content of the experience reveals itself as different flavors of bliss.)

An emotion of irritability comes up. I bring attention to what is really there, and see that all there is is a sensation and a story about the sensation, which together make up the gestalt of irritability. By seeing this, in real time, the gestalt falls into its components, and there is simply a sensation recognized as sensation, and a story recognized as just a story. Again, the content of experience inevitably changes due to a more clear and differentiated seeing of what was already there.

An emotion of anger comes up. I identify the story behind it (she should be more careful), inquire into it (is it true, what happens when I believe it?, what happens without the story?, what are the truths in its turnarounds?), and again see in a more clear and differentiated way what is already more true for me. This invites the attachment to the story to fall away, and along with it the pattern of reactivity giving rise to the emotion. Again, the content inevitably changes simply from seeing what is already more true.

Of course, it does matter what the motivation behind it is… Do I explore experiences to see what is more true for me, or to change it? If I do it out of curiosity, to see what is revealed when I explore it, then a change of content is just a side-effect, and not really that important apart from something else to notice. If I do it to change content, I have an image of the outcome, and possibly also of how the process itself should look, which makes it a less sincere, genuine and open-ended investigation.

In that sense, the advice is a good one. But it is also important to allow the content itself to change on its own, as a consequence of whatever investigation we engage in.

Seeing experiences as guest can be a useful (and rich) analogy.

Any experience is a guest, which lives its own life and comes and goes on its own.

We can of course invite certain guests, and discourage others, but that only works to a limited extent. We can invite happiness, through gratitude inventories, rejoicing in other’s happiness, acts of kindness and so on, but happiness still lives its own life… it comes and goes on its own, on its own time. No guest stays around permanently. We can discourage pain, yet pain also lives its own life, coming and going on its own and on its own time.

When guests are around, we can also be different types of hosts. We can cling to some guests, trying to convince them to stay around longer. We can be nasty to other guests, trying to get them to leave. But again, that has only limited effect, and is also quite stressful. As before, the guests live their own life, they come and go on their own time.

We can also be a courteous host, allowing the guests to come and go on their own, as they do anyway. We can find peace with them arriving, hanging around, and leaving, on their own time. We can even find appreciation for them, and their coming and going.

The ultimate hospitality is that of Ground which inherently allows any and all experiences to live their own life and come and go on their own. Mimicking this hospitality, we may even eventually discover ourselves to (already and always) be that Ground… this awake void allowing any forms which are not other than the awake emptiness itself.

In a relative sense, it is stressful and creates a lot of drama when we act as less than hospital hosts… it goes for our external life in the world, and also for our experiences. When we act with more hospitality, allowing the presence of the guests and recognizing that they live their own life, there is more peace and even appreciation for them. And it may even invite Ground to notice itself as Ground, as ultimate hospitality.

What are some common transition experiences during awakening?

Here are some I have noticed for myself, and also heard from others:

Within form…

• A sense of no separation between “I” here and the rest of the world out there
• A sense of oneness with all of Existence. I am here, yet one with all.
• A sense of the world of form as a seamless whole, with no separation between this human individual and the wider world
• Noticing synchronicities - the outer world mirroring the inner, as if one seamless field.

Within awareness…

• A sense of “I” as awakeness, as witness, pure awareness, pure seeing.
• A sense of awakeness out there, in the wider world… in plants, trees, objects, the universe. it all seems mysteriously and inherently awake somehow.

Within emptiness…

• A sense of awareness itself as a void, as empty, insubstantial.
• A sense of all forms being insubstantial, transparent. Almost like a dream.

With the sense of a separate I…

• The sense of a separate I weakens, becomes more transparent. There is just what is, content of experience staying much the same, yet with an absence of a separate I. And this becomes gradually more clear.

And it makes sense.

If what we are is awake emptiness and form, inherently absent of a separate I, then that is what comes through, in different ways, during the awakening process. We may take ourselves as an object in the world, but what we really are breaks through… as an intuition, a sense, a glimpse.

It is Big Mind gradually becoming more familiar with itself, as it already and always is. Only temporarily filtered through taking itself as an object within form.