Mountain - No Mountain - Mountain

This helpful little video explores one of my favourite topics – the path we take, in waking up to our TRUE NATURE.

Video transcript

[I know some people are readers, rather than watchers, so here's an edited transcript of the video above.]

Now I promised you a different diagram – we have got an exciting new diagram today, ta daa! I've been dying to talk about this for ages because it's one of my favourite things: Mountain - No mountain - Mountain.

And a bit of context for you… So this is like a Zen saying, or proverb… Alan Watts. You might have come across the philosopher Alan Watts, in one of his books he quotes a saying of a chap called Seigen Ishin, and he said:

“Before I had studied Zen for 30 years, I saw mountains as mountains and waters as waters.

When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and waters are not waters.

But now that I have got its very substance, I am at rest for it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains and waters once again as waters.”

How cryptic is that guys?!! I love it, I absolutely love it! Now, I've been doing some work with a with a coach of my own and one of the first questions he asked me was, “What is the journey that you that you take your clients on, you know, because they need to know that – they need to know that. What's the journey that you take your clients on?” and this was all I could come up with:

“Well, it's like Mountain, and then it's No mountain, and then it's Mountain again.”

…and he was like, “What are you on about mate?!”

So, allow me to explain.

Mountain (#1)

Experience is REAL and TRUE

Ok. Mountain… this is where the world around us, uh the mountain, and everything… it all looks real… because it is real okay? I'm not saying it's not real (you'll be pleased to see I've got real down here as well) so it looks real but it also looks true okay? It looks true.

So this is where we're totally unaware of the Three Principles, we've never heard of the Inside-Out understanding, nobody's ever told us that 100% of our experience of life is coming from thought, we don't know that we're well beings and we lack nothing… umm, nobody's pointed out to us that everyone's just doing what makes sense given the basis of their understanding and, you know, we've maybe heard that it's good to be more present every now and again, we feel a bit present, but other than that we've not really thought about it… Well, that's Mountain.

And that's where everything that's happening to us—you know, it looks like life is happening to us—we don't really question it, it's like, Aghh, that bad thing happened, and I feel a bit shit because that bad thing happened, that's Mountain that's caught up in the Outside-In misunderstanding. That's not seeing how things actually are.

So then you get the exploration of No Mountain…

No Mountain

The realisation that experience is NOT TRUE

When it comes to the process that I work with clients with, either individually or as groups, this is  MECHANICS, so this is Step 02 in my four-step process… it's four steps that we all really go through on this journey of waking up to our TRUE NATURE.

So Step 01 I call FOUNDATIONS and that's even showing up. That's even asking questions about… Hang, on, hang on a minute, shouldn't life be a bit easier? Shouldn't life be a bit more simple? How come everyone's depressed and anxious all the time? And really questioning why that might be.

So that's FOUNDATIONS. That's being open to the idea that there's another way. That there's something that we're not seeing. So that's essential.

So then Step 02 in my four-step process I call MECHANICS. Now that's No Mountain. And I've put here “Not true” because although, you know, there's a there's a flip board here that I can feel, and there's a shop that I'm sat in, and I can feel this lovely… I don't know what it is, don't ask me I've not got a clue, but it's nice… My experience of that okay—and experience is all we get, we don't get anything else, that's your job lot, all you ever get is an experience of one moment after another—my experience of all of that isn't true because it happens in thought.

Because it's indirect. It's second hand.

Because the data of my environment which, like, at the fundamental level is just energy. It's just fluctuations in energy you know? We are energy. We're part of that unified field of energy at the atomic level, or the quantum level, we're all ONE.

I watched a David Bohm documentary – oh so good! (Official website | Apple TV | Prime Video) He was a physicist who sort of combined quantum physics with with spirituality (which is what we're doing here, really) … whether we like it or not, at that fundamental  level of being we are just energy. We're just part of this field of energy…

So I'm surrounded by energy and my right hemisphere is taking all of that in. I'm getting that in-the-moment experience from my right hemisphere…I get a sense of reality… I get a sense of the oneness… In the nice quiet calm moments where I'm not really questioning life and i'm just in the flow of life… I'm just getting on with things…

And then my left hemisphere creates a story about that. It says, Well, Giles you know there's a table there, there's a camera over there… you need to talk to the camera because that's where the people are… But you're not there! Look for all I know—seriously, this has happened once before hasn't it?—I could have lost my internet connection!

So it's not true. It's not true. It's real you know. Everyone's experience is real. And when I'm working with clients who have symptoms of this and that, it's very important to understand that the symptoms that people have and the feelings that people have it's all it's all real, yeah it's all real.

But on this exploration, when we have some insights about how we're experiencing the world and what we really are at the fundamental level—which is just part of this energy field—that we're all ONE. We are just part of the oneness of life that we've all felt from time to time. When you see that… then you see that this idea of being an individual—this idea of being a separate self—is made up. It's a creation of thought.

So we see that there is No Mountain, because it's a creation of thought. The only way that we can experience it is in thought because a hundred percent of our experience is in thought… and I don't mean thinking about something, I mean thought-perception – The Principle of Thought. How we experience the world. What Anil Seth calls ‘a controlled hallucination’ … so it's real… our experience is real for us but it's just not true.

And when people see this, you know, when we're feeling anxious about stuff and we get we get a real deep understanding of the MECHANICS of how our minds work and we really understand what anxiety is—and anxiety is just a lovely little inbuilt warning sign that we've lost sight of the fact that we are all ONE and we are just part of this energy field and the only job that we have… we don't have any jobs but the only job that we have really is a breath in and a breath out… is to BE… that's all we get really, everything else is just icing on the cake—so when we really see that… all these feelings that we're running away from or thoughts that we don't want to keep occurring and stuff, that none of it's true! The experience of it is real but none of it's true… well that's when a huge weight [comes off] … that's when we see profound transformations.

I mean, I've seen miracles working with people. Witnessing what can happen when people see that there is No Mountain, it's astounding. I've seen people's lives completely change. I've seen 30 year long habits just dissolve! After 30 years of trying to change behaviour—of doing stuff—just seeing how experience works… how we're experiencing the world… GONE. Washed through with fresh new thinking; fresh new Thought; fresh new perception. So that's all this… that's No Mountain.

Mountain (#2)

Experience is REAL but NOT TRUE

But there's very obviously a Mountain there, isn't there?! (It's full of delicious paradoxes, this work!) There's very obviously a Mountain there. There's a shop. There's other people, you know? There is duality. There is this voice in my head. There is this idea of me being me being a thing, even though at the base level that's not true. But when we've been through No Mountain… when the scales have fallen from our eyes… Oh!!! You know, I don't have to be afraid any more! I don't have to be afraid of my experience – it's just thought, man! None of it's true! All of it is completely dependent on my frame of mind! All of it – 100% of it!

Because that's what it is to be human: is to feel that moment-to-moment perceptual process. To feel that kind of like that melting pot of the data that's coming in with our biology, our conditioning, and most crucially our understanding. And when we understand all of that—nothing to do, only something to see—well that's when it all falls away.

Beware spiritual bypass

But there are perils of staying here! There's peril in staying here. If we stay in there… so, like, you can go from Mountain to No Mountain and the scales can fall from your eyes… and you can have the most amazing insight, so it's like, Oh my god!! Oh my god it's all made up!!! None of it's true! It's all made up! 100% of it is thought! Everything I'm experiencing in my life is thought!! …

But if you stay there and you live from that place, well you can quite easily fall into denial. You can quite easily almost forsake the world of form… You can go “No mate, no it's all No Mountain, and there's… well, bills? Nah, they're just bits of paper that's just data it doesn't mean anything, what? No!”

And you know life can go to hell in a hand-cart pretty quickly. It's not really  seeing that that it's not true…because you're still avoiding feelings. When you know that feeling and thought are exactly the same thing and thought's ethereal and it comes and it goes and it doesn't mean anything and it's not personal… when you really know that, then it's okay to feel. It's fine. It's just another human emotion that can't harm you—it's impossible to be harmed psychologically!—well then you can really throw yourself into life and you can enjoy all the experiences: good, bad or ugly, all of them – every last one of them! Because it just doesn't matter, it's a game. You've seen that it's not true so then you can go back to Mountain…

There's another brilliant Zen proverb that says something like,

Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.

And it's that thing where nothing's different, but everything's changed.

Because you've got a completely different perspective on it. So the difference between this Mountain (#1) and this Mountain (#2) is that we've been through this [No Mountain] … we've seen that this isn't true.

So whereas up here at Mountain (#1), it's real—all experience is real—and we think it's true… tons of suffering results. So then we see that it's not true… well, as Alan Watts put it: “A really groovy human being” (it was the 60s!) “…is somebody who can mix these two” and that's this Mountain (#2) down here. It's real—all experience is real, all of it—but we know it's not true.

It's like a trip to the cinema.

It's like it's like that trip to the cinema that I'm always banging on about. We go to the cinema and there's two things we need to understand about cinema to really enjoy going to watch a film. Two things. The first is how film works.

When you go and watch a film you need to know it's not true, otherwise you'd be totally freaked out by the stuff that was going on, up on the screen. You'd be scared to death when someone came out with a knife! You'd be phoning the fire brigade every time you saw a fire up screen. So you need to know it's not true.

But then to really enjoy it, you need to buy into that illusion. You need to willingly submit to the illusion because otherwise you'll spend your time sitting in the cinema just critiquing it and you can't enjoy it because you're just there going, Well it's not true is it? I can't enjoy this film, it's not true!

No, no, no. You go with it. You go with the flow of it. You willingly submit yourself to the illusion and as a result you have all these amazing emotional experiences. You know, some of the most amazing experiences I've had in a cinema—laughing my head off with my fellow human beings, at really funny stuff in a cinema—I knew it wasn't true, and then I'd willingly submitted to that.

Well that's the Mountain (#2) down here. That's experiencing it as real, but knowing it's not true.

That's where you have your fun in life.

That's where you you know you're able to make decisions about stuff and get yourself unstuck about careers and things like that because you know it's not true; that your experience of it isn't true. You know, it's a game… at the end of the day, it's a game – life's a game!

So anyway, that's Mountain - No Mountain - Mountain.

💟

Giles