Seeing Things as Such

 

Photo Credit: Twitter|Sherolynn Braegger

Seeing Things as Such

There is a Buddhist word – ‘Tathata’ – which is translated as ‘thusness’ or ‘suchness’, referring to the nature of reality free from conceptual elaboration and the subject-object distinction. Osho says this was Buddha’s approach towards reality. He says, “Seeing things as such, don’t take any attitude, don’t make any opinion, don’t judge or condemn.” The Buddhist meditation consists of ‘suchness’. The method is very practical and very deep-going. Buddha has said to his disciples, “Just watch things as they are, without interfering.”

For example, one has a headache. The moment we notice it, immediately the opinion enters that, “this is not good. Why should I have a headache? What should I do not to have it?” We start worrying immediately, we form an opinion, we are against it, we start repressing it. Either we have to repress it chemically, through a pain killer tablet, or we have to repress it in the consciousness - we don’t look at it, we put it aside. We get involved in something else, we want to be distracted in something else so we can forget it. But in both ways, we have missed suchness.

Buddha says take note twice and don’t feel inimical towards it – neither friendly not antagonistic. Just simply take a not of it, as if it has nothing to do with us and remain undistracted, uninfluenced by it, without forming any opinion.

Immediately, ninety percent of the headache is gone… because a headache is not a real headache, ninety percent arises out of the antagonistic opinion. Immediately we will see that the greater part of it is no longer there.

And another thing will be noted: sooner or later we will see that the headache is disappearing in something else - maybe we are now feeling anger. What happened? If we repress the headache, we will never come to know what its real message was. The headache was there just as an indicator that we are full of anger in this moment and the anger is creating a tension in the head, hence the headache.

So, when we just observe it, the headache disappears and anger appears. Again, observe the anger from a distance, don’t become the anger, and slowly 90% of the anger disappears, and the remaining 10% will release its message. It may so turn out that it is not anger, but ego which is making us angry. We should keep doing this till the chain is finally broken when we reach the root cause of the headache.

A moment will come when we take note of the last link in the chain, and then nothingness. Then we are released from the whole chain, and there will arise great purity, great silence. That silence is called suchness. This has to be practiced continuously. Sometimes it may happen that we forget, and we form an opinion unconsciously, mechanically.

If this happens, don’t worry – just repeat ‘opinion, opinion’ and don’t get distracted by this. Don’t worry, and by and by 90% of the opinion is gone and 10% remains and releases its message. We should continue this process till we reach the root cause and then silence prevails. Soon we realise that the mind is no longer entangled as it has always been. 

Things start disappearing, and we find ourselves in moments of suchness, when we are simply there and existence is there and there is no opinion between the self and existence. All is undisturbed by thought, unpolluted by thought. Existence is, but mind has disappeared. That state of no-mind is called suchness.