A week ago, in a Daily Reminder that looked at how the mind will sometimes try and turn the Innate Health understanding into a set of rules it can operate by, I casually dropped in this statement:
We get this experience of Now – pure presence, or flow, or pure, uncontaminated Thought-perception (‘Just tree’ as the Buddhists call it).
…and the story of ‘Just tree’ is so good, and has helped me so much, that I wanted to share it with you.
I came across it in Michael A. Singer’s brilliant book (his best, IMHO), Living Untethered. In the run up to ‘Just tree’, he’s talking in very straightforward terms about the inside-out understanding, and how we don’t experience the world directly, even though it looks like we do.
He brings up the example of the old Rorschach, or ink-blot test, where psychologists show you a random ink-blot on a sheet of paper and ask you what you see – something we’ve all heard of, and probably all seen, but like so many things, we gloss over its significance.
Everybody perceives, thinks, and feels something different, when they look at an ink-blot… so it can’t be coming from the ink-blot!!
Having pointed out the fact that the entirety of life is basically one big Rorschach test, he then relates the tale:
“What happened to you?” the Zen master asks, “You look so alive and filled with light!”
After initial puzzlement has subsided, the monk replies,
“I was walking across the courtyard and saw the big oak tree. I stopped and looked at it. I had seen it many times before, but this time I saw just tree. I just saw the tree. Somehow it took me to such a deep place, I felt an awakening. It took me beyond myself.”
“That tree has been there for hundreds of years,” the master tells him. “You have walked by that tree every single day since you’ve been here.”
“Yes,” the student says, “but when I previously walked by the tree, it often reminded me of the tree Buddha sat under when he reached enlightenment. Other times, the tree reminded me of the one I fell out of when I was little. The tree always stimulated thought patterns from my past. This time I saw just tree.”
The master smiles.
These tales of Zen can sound a bit esoteric and mystical, but they’re very straightforward really (a product of the fact that there’s only ever really one thing going on, and everybody’s pointing to it, in their own special way).
Our senses—which you can think of as Thought-perception (the Principle of Thought, in 3Ps terminology)—deliver an experience to us. And before the mind jumps in and starts analysing it all, and asking its eternal question, But what does this mean for me?! it is pure. Uncontaminated.
It's ‘just tree’. It's the closest you're going to get to reality. (Which is wondrous, and awe-inspring.)
And then of course, because you're human, you've got this Thought System 📦 (or ego) that's full of past experience. And it uses all of that cruft—that's yours, and yours alone; it ain't true!—to judge and analyse and compare, and remove you from the experience of life that's happening, right under your nose.
It creates distance. It separates us and disconnects us from life. (Which is wondrous, and awe-inspiring.)
All of a sudden, ‘just tree’ (i.e.life itself) is gone, and we're experiencing our past and our prejudices and the mind's expectations instead.
😢
Why is this important?
For me, tales like this are all part and parcel of getting your own evidence. Of waking up to the dream; of seeing the all-encompassing nature of the principles by which you're having this experience of life.
Because when you've clocked ‘just tree’ a few times (which let's face is, isn't hard), before you know it, you'll be experiencing ‘just email’… ‘just partner’… ‘just thought’.
So why not try it out, today? Catch yourself, let your mind relax out of analysis-mode just for a moment or two—give it a well-earned break!—and allow yourself to experience ‘just…’
💝
Giles
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Giles P Croft