We went hiking again with Miguel today and another good friend. We decided to do our favourite hike – the 3 lakes (Kinsa Cocha). We met at Paz Y Luz at 7.30am and took our usual taxi trip half way up the mountain to the home of one of the locals. It was bitterly cold, and very wet and windy. We opened the ceremony with a small fire which was smoking heavily and a challenge to keep alight.
We would usually drink as much as we wanted with Miguel, although today he was quite insistent that we all drunk a cup filled to the brim. Once the rain had subsided, we began hiking, and the familiar feelings of heaviness and nausea set in. I continued walking and was ready for whatever needed to arise. About an hour and a half into the hike, we stopped for a few minutes while I threw up.
The feeling of nausea still hadn’t passed, and now I was clear that I was still holding on to something. In my experience, once the medicine has been vomited up and my stomach was empty, any further dizziness, heaviness, nausea or pain was psychic and could only be released through understanding and then purging whatever needed to be removed.
As we got to the top lake, we sat down to take a break and eat some food. I walked over to the lake and I could feel the tears rising. As I faced the lake, I started to cry. I felt like I was a conduit for the guilt and pain of my past generations. According to the tradition, we are very connected to our 7 generations. I’d never experienced this kind of feeling before. It was strange because although I could feel the pain and guilt as it was released, it was totally detached from me, my space and my consciousness. I let it go without identifying with it, and immediately the nausea began to pass.
I saw the clearest vision of a whole group of people dancing around the lake at night. The lake was both a lake and a huge fire at the same time. There was no conflict, jealousy, greed, hatred or anger. I could pick out the faces of my family in the circle. This was a level of enlightenment – no resistance.
The vision passed and I returned to the group. Miguel pointed out that it’s usually at the top lake where I unblock and deal with whatever I need to deal with. That feeling of warmth, lightness and joy was growing and I started to smile.
The rest of the hike was as spectacular as always. At times we talked together, and at times we walked alone and in silence. There was no guidance or instruction needed, it just flowed the way that it did.
Afterwards we had a meal with the locals and got into the taxi to go back down the mountain. I remarked to Miguel that it was a shame we hadn’t seen any donkeys – one of my favourite animals. As we were driving, Miguel saw two donkeys. He told the driver to stop, and me to get out. I walked over to the first donkey and slowly put my hand out.
He flinched and communicated, “I’ve been beaten so many times, I’m tired, but do what you must.” He had become totally tied up in a rope that was cutting into his foot. I helped him get untangled and stroked his face and neck. I was physically and mentally tired from the hike, and this experience was overwhelmingly painful.
I was aware by now of the difference between genuine compassion, and taking on someone else’s suffering – i.e. using someone’s suffering as an excuse to indulge in my own desire to suffer. This just wasn’t OK though, and there was really nothing I could do. As I started to walk back to the car, the donkey followed me as far as his rope would allow. By the time I got into the car I was crying. I told Miguel what had happened and how unpleasant it was. Miguel replied, “I try to focus my attention on the things I can change rather than those that I can’t.”
“That’s really helpful.” I thought to myself sarcastically.
In the next moment, insights hit me one after the other on the deepest level that I knew of. I woke up to a degree, finally, for the first time.
For those that have experienced lucid dreams, they often begin as a rush of awareness and ‘waking up’ inside an unconscious or blurry dream. That rush of awareness and expansion hit me in this waking space.
If we were enlightened and free of resistance as I had seen in that vision earlier, we wouldn’t be here. This space of duality and mirrors, where we see ourselves, our likes and our hates in everything is simply a training ground. This is a playground for us to work our baggage out.
None of this is real – this is a dream world, full of dream characters. Non attachment isn’t some spiritual practice, it’s the only option. Even the “really important” things that I could never dream of letting go of were just temporary. I felt the pain of realising my parents, my wife, all of it was impermanent. Suddenly things like guilt, embarrassment, and other issues brought to past ceremonies seemed so foreign and strange. These things are dreams within dreams within dreams.
I spent the rest of the journey home in silence, sitting in this new space, confused and in some degree of resistance. The insights had shaken my awareness so fully. I couldn’t distract myself or deny them.
The effects of this ceremony were still being integrated over a week later. I’d partially woke up from the dream and I still couldn’t deny my new detached awareness. It felt something like a death – I would forget about it for a few minutes as I lost myself in something before the awareness would come right back again. I felt slightly scared, but mainly lonely. For once, I hadn’t just started perceiving differently but was actually seeing differently. I had what seemed like a permanently altered awareness.
I was avoiding and resisting this change on every level, and I knew it was time to face it. Non attachment and the Buddhist idea that attachment leads to suffering began to make total sense. There is truly nothing to be attached to any more than I find myself attached to my night time dreams. This is an impermanent and illusory experience in duality. The loneliness in realizing that really, there was no “other” but only my perception was overpowering.
Fears of the future disappeared that day for good. I knew I could manifest anything I wanted to, it would just take the right amount of vision and focus.
I found it difficult to communicate with others for many days – I was walking through a dream that I couldn’t force myself to wake up from. I found conversations trivial and meaningless and just couldn’t engage with them.
If everything was nothing and nothing objective existed then what? If I walked in front of a car, would I wake up from this layer of dream? And what difference if I did? I went to speak to Javier about this, and he suggested that I go and meet with another friend who had experience in this area.
I went to meet with his friend and explained my experience.
Me: “If this is just a dream and nothing has any objective meaning then what?”
Him: “What about love?”
Me: “The love of the mind is just ego. Beyond that, I’m not certain.”
Him: “Buddhism talks of the 4 extremes and the middle way, and this is an extreme. Everything is nothing, but that is only a truth, not the truth. The position that everything is nothing rejects another truth that everything is everything.”
The middle space and next layer of non attachment is in not becoming attached to the idea that everything is nothing – it’s another tool for the mind to use.
I was experiencing more and more periods of “empty mind” – not a single thought, feeling nor resistance coming up. I had forgotten what all that mental chatter was like, and I felt that I was now at “stage 2” if you like.
I understood on an intellectual level what dying while still alive was, and I could see that this was the next step.
