What is the Fundamental Nature?
Can the Ineffable be Effed? ;)
Coming to know the Fundamental Nature for what-it-is is the fulcrum of “Full Awakening.” And “getting to know” it is both the easiest thing and the hardest thing to do. Paradoxical-sounding language is part-and-parcel to any discussion of the Fundamental Nature because it can’t be adequately described. You could do nothing but talk about it for a thousand years and you wouldn’t even have begun to describe it. Further, half of what you said would sound contradictory to the other half!
And yet it is the most obvious thing in the world. It is the very luminance and vitality of your being, your experience, your presence. It’s what you are. You can’t get away from it, you can’t negate it, you can’t ignore it — even if you wanted to! And yet we completely overlook it virtually our entire lives. This overlooking itself is the source of our delusion and suffering (as I use the term).
The Fundamental Nature is ineffable. It can’t be described in words because words are mere concepts and it is not a concept. Everything in reality is ineffable if you examine it closely. But the Fundamental Nature is more so because it is that-which-includes-all, and words/concepts are used to divide and separate. How could you use a tool that only divides and separates to apprehend that which only includes and contains? A traditional Hindu phrase exists for this reason: “One without a second.”
Understood properly, that’s a pointer, not a metaphysical proposition. A lot of teachers and seekers confuse the two. A pointer is a description of what to look for in your direct experience. That’s how you come to know about the Fundamental Nature in the practice of inquiry. But the fundamental “one without a second” is very subtle and not likely to sink in without a lot of investigation/inquiry. More on this below.
The term “Fundamental Nature” is the most no-frills label I’ve come across for it; consequently, I like it. Lao-tzu called it Tao. In Buddhist circles they often refer to it with the term Buddha-Nature. In Hinduism they often talk about it in terms of atman/Brahman. ‘Sailor’ Bob Adamson has used the term Presence-Awareness for it. Peter Brown discussed it at great length with the label Radiant Presence. John Wheeler liked the bare-bones moniker “Fundamental Nature.” That sits well with me because it is a label is divorced of tradition and scant on over-conceptualization.
The Fundamental Nature is your true nature (it’s the nature of everything, in fact). Further, it is what’s fundamental — bedrock. Not even quarks or other subatomic particles are this basic. What we know of subatomic particles, we know because the Fundamental Nature is that-which-knows and provides the means by which we investigate physics (and everything else). Without the Fundamental Nature nothing is known, and nothing is experienced.
The Fundamental Nature is not a concept. It is not philosophical. It’s what you are. It’s the “Light Behind Consciousness.” Or, as Nisargadatta Maharaj described it, it is “the light behind the watcher.” Or if you practice mindfulness meditation, it is the “light behind the meditator/meditation.”
You know you are experiencing. Even if what you are experiencing is a hallucination, delusion, brain-in-a-vat simulation, etc., the fact of experience itself is still going on. And that “knowing” of experiencing happening is what the Fundamental Nature does. If you can grok that, the more mind-bending aspect of this (warning: deep end of the pool!) is the Fundamental Nature is what knows when experience is not happening! That is why the pointer “one without a second” exists. Don’t worry if that sounds like gibberish. Stick with the inquiry long enough and be diligent — it will eventually make sense.
Since words could be offered indefinitely and still come no closer to describing it, let me echo the Hindu tradition of neti, neti:1
Consciousness is transient; it comes and goes within the Fundamental Nature. You are not consciousness.
Awareness is transient; it comes and goes within the Fundamental Nature. You are not awareness.
Existence/being is transient; it comes and goes within the Fundamental Nature. You are not existence/being.
Personality/personhood are transient; they come and go within the Fundamental Nature. You are not personality or personhood.
The Fundamental Nature is not transient; it is eternal and unchanging. It is all-knowing; it knows all experience, and it knows when experience is not present. It is not personal. The personal is but an appearance within it.
The Fundamental Nature is not a concept. It is not philosophical. It’s what you are.
The Fundamental Nature is what you seek, whether you know it or not.
The gist of the “neti, neti…” discussion is that if there is a "you" that exists, then, whatever that is, it cannot come-and-go. How would that be possible? If you look at your experience right now, it should be blatently obvious that you exist. So then the real question becomes: what ARE you?
More pointedly: if you exist, and you don't come-and-go, then what is it in your experience that does NOT come-and-go? Can you find it? "Neti, neti..." means basically "not this, not that..." So this kind of examination entails observing your experience directly and eliminating the possibilities of what-you-are by striking possible canditates off the list when you figure out they do or can come-and-go. There's no agreed-upon word/term for "that which does not come-and-go." So I use the term "fundamental nature."
If you think "awareness" or "existence" doesn't "go away" that's fine. This essay attempts to address that point, but it’s really not that important. The real point is that you should feel that you do exist and you are aware... so can you find "that-which-does-not-come-and-go?" Can you find “that” which makes experience possible? For whatever “that” is, it must not come-and-go or you would be blinking in and out of existence!