The Paradox of Awareness

Are the tension and pain real? Something is there, but what is it? One night recently I was walking along the ocean with the moonlight shining on the water. I could see a shimmer of light on the ocean, but was the moonlight really there? Did the ocean really have anything on it? What is that color? Is it real or not? Neither is quite correct. For my perspective, the moonlight was on the water. But if I had been closer to the surface, I wouldn't see any moonlight on the water. I would just see whatever I would see at that point. There is no such thing as moonlight literally on the water. As for clouds in the sky: if we are in a cloud, we call it fog. We likewise give a kind of false reality to our thoughts. It's true that we always live within a certain perspective. Practice is about learning to live in that relative reality, and enjoying it, but seeing it for what it is. Like the moonlight on the water, it's there - from a certain relative perspective - and it's not real, it's not the absolute. Even the water itself has only relative reality. When there is no light on the water, we see the water as black. I have had dinner at a restaurant by the ocean and watched the water turn from blue to dark blue to darker purple, and finally it can't be seen at all. What is real? In absolute terms, none of it is real. In terms of our practice, however, we must begin with our experience, with this meticulous work with awareness. We need to return to the reality of our lives. We have pains and aches, we have troubles, we like people or we don't like them: this is the stuff of our lives. This is where our work with awareness begins.

The Paradox of Awareness page 156 - 7 Nothing Special by Charlotte Joko Beck