I will be the first to admit that normal, healthy, well-balanced individuals are not unhappy. Nor is it unpleasant to reminisce, keeping the awareness permanently busy. There are lots of things we can enjoy thinking about and doing without ever hearing of perfect happiness. However:
Applying the knowledge contained in these pages can lead to extremes of happiness.
Ordinarily, people stroll nonchalantly among the foothills of the experience and lead quite pleasant lives. This theory reveals the unsuspected presence of an Everest of happiness that many will be able to conquer should they feel so inclined.
The main point in the theory I would like to stress is that although the attainment of Nirvana is a long drawn out business, the improvement in both the quality and the quantity of what happiness we get is not. In the final reckoning the attainment of Nirvana - perfect happiness - becomes of only academic interest. It remains as the ultimate goal of the meditator - but in the later stages of his quest, when happiness is flooding his brain during every waking moment, there is little incentive to press on with the pursuit of it. It remains a hypothetical goal which it would be nice, but not essential, to reach.
In this manner the ideal attitude towards the goal is established; and that is one of having no attitude at all. (In the best Zen tradition.) Nirvana will be experienced when you are ready for it. There is nothing you can do to hurry it along. Just enjoy what happiness you have access to. Learn what relinquishing conscious mental activity feels like. You must be patient until you get used to the feelings associated with the retreat of awareness through the gate of B O S so that you can remain detached from them. Until that time you will find that elements of B O S are reconstituted automatically every time Nirvana looms on your mental horizon. You can feel the habitual constriction used to observe every external phenomenon imposing itself on your awareness - you will find yourself "looking" for it and you will end up, in all probability, in the centre of sight. Frustratingly, I/1 has once again picked up some of the tools in the armoury of conscious mental activity in order to investigate this interesting, new phenomenon as it forms. The day will come, however, when you will not do this; get ready to be engulfed by the cool, white, spaciousness of perfect happiness.
Imagine that the mind is a soft, clay ball in which the awareness resides. Thoughts are represented by irregularities on the surface of this ball. The awareness directs two arms (representing conscious mental activity) to extend from the mass of the ball and smooth away these irritating blemishes. These arms do a good job and the resident of the ball often feels very happy. One day these "arms" will disappear and the surface of the ball will become miraculously smooth. At that instant the drab ball of clay will be transformed into a luminous pearl.
Have no thoughts either in favour of Nirvana or against conscious mental activity.
Good luck.
I'll give the great master Seccho the last word:
Blind! Deaf! Dumb!
Infinitely beyond the reach of conscious mental activity.
Encompassing all possible heavens.
How ludicrous! How disheartening!
Yet what other life can compare with mine
as I sit here quietly by the window
watching the flowers bloom and the leaves fall
as the seasons come and go?
Do you understand or not?
An iron bar without a hole!