Insight, Transmutation, and Revolution

Flocks of sparrows land in groups of 15 or 20 in the shallows across the stream. One group flies down from the branches overhanging the creek as another flies up, in a perfectly choreographed flurry of life.

It feels like it’s raining birds, so many are flying up and down in front and around one. As soon as this dance of life ended, a mallard couple casually drifts down the current. They are the picture of ease, and languidly settle into the shallows for some preening and a nap.

Their connubial bliss is rudely interrupted. Three males make their way upstream near the edge of the stream, where the water flows past a line of stones. Paddling against the current or walking in their ungainly way in the shallow water, they head straight for the female across from me.

This should be interesting I think. Sure enough, when the lead male gets within a few feet of the couple, all hell breaks loose. The paired male fearlessly attacks the chap at the head of the duck pack. There is a brief skirmish, and all five fly downstream at high speed, just above the water.

A few minutes later one of the males returns, flying somewhat higher. The encounter must have slightly unhinged him, because he actually hits a branch above me, though he recovers quickly in flight.

The oaks in the parkland are filling in, but the sycamores, the last to come into leaf, are still bare. The rains are dwindling, but the grasses are still green and lush. With their flowering ends, they look like small shafts of wheat waving in the late afternoon sunlight.

One leaves the increasingly polluted river of consciousness sitting next to the infinitely pure stream of life. Across the creek and through the trees 50 meters away, people are going by on the park road. They seem at once far away, and close.

It’s a tremendous thing to spontaneously step out of content-consciousness without being separate from the world. This effortless and unintended effect of meditation happens again and again during sittings in the sanctuary of the park, and each time it occurs, it’s new, and renews one.

Content-consciousness is to us humans like water is to fish; we inhale and exhale it, swimming in it without even knowing it is our milieu. To become aware of this darkening sea, and be lifted out of it, one has to learn the art of undivided observation.
It’s the quality of watching that acts on the cumulative past within one, and frees one from its shadow. Then there is, briefly or irrevocably, another order of consciousness altogether, one of light, not darkness.

All this may sound rather esoteric, but it’s really basically simple. There are, as I see it, two primary levels of reaction. The first is emotions that bubble up or burst forth, as well as mental chatter, associations, and memories that seem to be continually thrown forth in the mind.

The second level of reaction is the observer, with all its judgments and evaluations, mostly subconscious. When one simply attends to the movement of the content of the mind and heart, without this secondary level of reaction, the heart empties and the mind quiets. It’s the observer, and lack of attention, that keeps all the mental chatter and impacted emotion going.

But how does one end the observer? There is no method, but if one watches the movement of one’s mind carefully, awareness quickens and thought slows. There is a moment when the whole brain catches thought separating itself from itself as the observer, the self, the ‘me.’ That insight ends inward division, at least for the moment.

So it’s the quality of the watching that acts on and negates the past. The ‘I,’ as a product of thought, can act on nothing. It can only react.

Thought can only separate. That’s a necessary and rightful physical function, since we couldn’t conceive, plan, or build anything without it.

It’s when thought spills over into the psychological realm that the problem begins. Then thought inevitably divides, and that’s what has produced so much conflict and suffering in the world, not to mention the increasing disruption of the earth’s seamless systems.

To some degree, insight physically changes the brain. As such insight affects, to some extent, the core consciousness of humanity, which is shared by everyone. A transmutation begins in the individual that has a deep and abiding insight into the entire movement of thought within themselves.

Man will destroy the earth if we don’t bring about a psychological revolution. Even though the vast majority of people won’t initially understand any of these things, if a small percentage do (which doesn’t make them elite), they can ignite the revolution that changes the disastrous course of humankind.

Martin LeFevre is a contemplative, and non-academic religious and political philosopher. He has been publishing in North America, Latin America, Africa, and Europe (and now New Zealand) for 20 years. Email: martinlefevre@sbcglobal.net . The author welcomes comments.

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