Pristine Clarity

The clarity we will speak of here is not the clarity that results from mentally studying a particular issue until there is a conclusive sense of understanding. That is intellectual clarity. And it is important in its place. 

However, here we are speaking about a very different type of clarity – the clarity which spontaneously arises from a spacious, pure, and unconditioned awareness. It doesn’t aim at resolving or understanding anything. It merely allows you to see the truth of what is as is – the true nature of self, life, and reality free from the influence and judgment of past experience. And that we will call “knowing” rather than “understanding.”

Join me in this discussion and practice.

Transcript

                                            Pristine Clarity

When we speak of clarity, we are not speaking of an intellectual clarity that arises out of analyzing or studying a particular issue. Here we are speaking about the experience of clarity that is a perfume of our natural awareness. That clarity spontaneously arises from a spacious and unconditioned presence and awareness. It is always present even when it is obscured by mind talk. You cannot create it. You can only reveal it by removing the obscuring mental chatter.

In the East they point to this experience with a metaphor. Consider an aquarium filled with water and silt. You cannot see clearly through the water to the other side of the aquarium. We say the water is unclear. But if you let the silt settle the clarity of the water will appear and you will be able to see right through it. We say the water is now clear, but it was always clear. Its clarity was only obscured by the silt. 

It is the same with our awareness. When our awareness is obscured by random mental activity, we cannot experience its natural clarity. We experience through the murky filter of the active mind with its ideas, beliefs, and conditioning. A clouded awareness does not allow us to experience ourselves or the world as it actually is. Lacking a clear and precise knowledge of what is as is, our understandings, actions and reactions miss the target. They respond to our imprecise understanding rather the actual reality of circumstances and things as they are.  

To live and to flourish with a freshness and vitality is to see truth moment-to-moment, to see reality as it is rather than as a mental distortion. For this we have to access and dwell in an open, spacious, and clear awareness. That awareness is clear by nature. There is nothing we have to do to create the clarity except sustain a few flowing spacious presence.

That is one of the precious gifts of an awareness-based meditation. We are able to touch and directly experience the clarity I am speaking of. Can you recall a time when suddenly you spontaneously knew something with certainty, finality, and a sense of relief. If you examine what happened you will discover that for a moment your mind stopped chattering, a space opened, and a deeper clarity and wisdom arose, which resolved your concerns from a place of full possibilities and creativity. That’s what happens when we learn to cultivate and stabilize a clear awareness.  

There is really nothing to do but to drop the ordinary mind of your personal self, drop in to awareness, and dwell in that open space. Whatever needs to arise as deeper and clear knowledge will do so naturally in its own time. Be still, aware, receptive and allow the flow of life. In this manner you will progressively know true clarity and it will be a reliable anchor and guide for your life.