Nothing needs to be done. Nothing needs to be created or changed or altered. The recognition of what-really-is is enough, and what-really-is cannot be susceptible to creation or alteration or destruction; it already and always is what it is. Anyone who wants to find it just needs to recognize it, yet it cannot be known in the usual way of perceiving subject over against a perceived object. Just knowing one’s pure consciousness from the non-conceptual perceptual position of pure consciousness is the knowing and the recognition. Alteration, transformations, and corrections are functions of a dichotomizing mind absorbed in the delusions of dualisms. When one’s pure consciousness is recognized it is because attention has introverted itself inwardly. The Upanishadic Vedanta calls this introversion “atma jnana”, or “self-knowledge”. The Taoist literature refers to this as “turning the light around”. Some of the Buddhist terms are “reverting to the onloooker”, or “Oceanic Reflection”, or “amalavijnana” and etc. The way things really are, whether of phenomena or of consciousness, are non-conceptual and devoid of any self-definition or mark of separate existence.
Transcending all identity with any particular, specific phenomenon, (usually the body-mind or psychosomatic complex) we can know what-we-are as being consciousness, the spectator and witness of all material phenomena, subtle or gross. The gross phenomena are the elemental or physical objects we contact with our sense organs; the subtle phenomena are the events happening in our minds, feelings, emotions, desires, and imagination. But we do not belong to any particular objective class or degree of existence or becoming or identity. And there is no valid reason to be attached to any of the impermanent things with form, whether subtle or gross. Real identity is entirely obvious once it is known clearly. The witness is the perceiver of the all, and unattached, is always free. The reason why we are ill-at-ease, or dis-eased, is that we don’t understand ourSelves as the witness; we suppose we are an ego, identified as a phenomenal particular object. Peace is the lack of the ego-illusion based in discriminative error, the notion and perspective of dualism. It is easy and common to have become conditioned and trapped in false identity but this false identity can be evaporated with recognition and knowledge. All our “bondage” (so-called) is conceptual; we are tied up in a conceptual entanglement. The disentanglement occurs not as some definite activity designed to untie the knot of bondage but as a simple understanding of how conceptual constructs are based in distorted perception. When these are recognized it is simultaneously realized that there is really nothing to do. Disentanglement occurs naturally once the truth is seen. Although there may be considerable effort spent in presumably “doing” things like logical reasoning, meditation, contemplation, and critical thinking, nothing needs to be done to change the way things really are. Seeing the truth clearly allows the tangle to untangle itself. It may seem that spontaneity requires some preparatory effort, but that effort does not add to reality, the actuality; it merely subtracts the false.
