the awakened eye - Cezanne and Nature's Eternity

encounters with nondual awareness

I am indebted to Rupert Spira for permission to present here his ground-breaking essay on Cézanne and nondual understanding:
Nature's Eternity

This essay is extracted from Rupert's book
The Transparency of Things.

To go to Rupert's website, where you can read this essay and others as well, please click

HERE

Please also view his page in artisans

paul cézanne:
"He was the father of us all"

Mont Saint Victoire
(detail)

The seen cannot be separated
from seeing and seeing cannot be
separated from Consciousness.

Although the appearances are changing all the time, their
Existence or Reality doesn’t
change from one appearance
to another.

There is a Reality to every
perception although the
perception itself is fleeting
and insubstantial, vanishing
at every moment, and this Reality
endures from one appearance
to another.

It is our direct experience
that we, Consciousness, are Existence, that we are what the universe is.

seeing/drawing
as meditation

seeing without shadows

Rupert Spira,
The Transparency of Things
a collection of contemplative
essays and conversations

nature's eternity

Cézanne and the thrill of Reality

Paul Cézanne said, “Everything vanishes, falls apart, doesn’t it? Nature is always the same but nothing in her that appears to us lasts. Our art must render the thrill of her permanence, along with her elements, the appearance of all her changes. It must give us a taste of her Eternity.”

That statement must be one of the clearest and most profound expressions of the nature and purpose of art in our era.

What did Cézanne mean, standing in front of a mountain, Mont St. Victoire, one of the most solid and enduring structures in nature, when he said, “Everything vanishes, falls apart…?”

Cézanne was referring to the act of seeing.

We do not perceive a world outside Consciousness. The world is our perception of the world. There is no evidence that there is a world outside the perception of it, outside Consciousness.

The seen cannot be separated from seeing and seeing cannot be separated from Consciousness.

A solid object cannot appear in Consciousness any more than a solid object can appear in thought.

Only an object that is made out of matter could appear in space. Only an object that is made out of mind could appear in mind. And only an object that is made out of Consciousness can appear in Consciousness.

And as everything ultimately appears in Consciousness, everything is, in the ultimate analysis, made out of Consciousness.

When we say that we perceive an object, we mean that that object appears in Consciousness. It is a perception appearing in Consciousness.

If we close our eyes for a moment, the previous perception vanishes completely. If we reopen our eyes a new perception appears. Although it may seem to be the same object that reappears, it is in fact a new perception.

If we repeat this process, apparently looking at the same object over a period of time, the mind will collate the various images or perceptions and conceive a solid object that has apparently endured throughout the appearance and disappearance of the perceptions, and that exists in time and space, independently of the Consciousness that perceives it.

This concept will itself appear and disappear like any other perception. And with the next thought, a subject, a viewer, will be conceived, which allegedly had several different views of the apparent object, and which was allegedly present before, during and after its appearance.

In this case the object and the viewer, which are both conceived as existing in their own right, independent of the thought that thinks them, are both concepts.

Such an object and its subject, the viewer, are in fact simply and only that very thought with which they are conceived.

And in order to conceive of such an object that exists and endures in time and space, time and space themselves have first to be conceived, in order to house these objects.

Likewise, time and space themselves turn out to be nothing other than the very thought with which they are conceived.

However, although this capacity of mind to conceive an object and a corresponding subject, is useful, it does not reflect an accurate model of experience.

Our actual experience is that one perception disappears absolutely before the next perception appears. It is in this sense that, as Cézanne said, everything ‘vanishes’ from moment to moment.

The apparent experience of a solid object is dissolved in this understanding, and is replaced by the understanding that we in fact experience a series of fleeting, insubstantial perceptions. It is in this sense that ‘everything falls apart.’

Having said that, we also have the deep intuition that something, which Cézanne calls ‘nature,’ endures.

Where does this sense of endurance or permanence come from? From where does Cézanne derive the knowledge that, ‘Nature is always the same,’ given that he has already acknowledged that, ‘Everything we see vanishes, falls apart?’

As human beings we are just as much a part of nature as the mountain that Cézanne was looking at. The body/mind/world is one integrated system.

Therefore, the exploration of the so-called internal, subjective realm of ourselves and of the so-called external, objective realm of nature must, in the end, lead to the same Reality.

Nature and man are part of one integrated system and must therefore share their Existence. Their Being must be shared.

Looking at the objective aspect first, Cézanne acknowledges that the sense of endurance or permanence in nature cannot come from ‘the appearance of all her changes,’ because ‘nothing in her that appears to us lasts.’

He implicitly acknowledges that an ‘object’ is a concept derived from a series of fleeting, insubstantial perceptions, but that each of those perceptions has a shared Reality. This Reality is expressed by but is independent of each of those appearances.

In his statement that ‘Nature is always the same but nothing in her that appears to us lasts,’ there are three elements.

There is the Reality or Existence of nature, which is ‘always the same.’ There is the appearance of nature, in which ‘nothing lasts.’ And there is the ‘us,’ that is, Consciousness, which is aware of the appearances.

Cézanne acknowledges these three elements in any experience. Existence, appearance, Consciousness.

From which of these three elements does Cézanne derive the knowledge that in our experience of nature there is something that is ‘always the same,’ that there is something that endures?

In the statement, ‘Nothing in her (nature) that appears to us, lasts,’ Cézanne discounts whatever appears in nature as a possible source of that which is ‘always the same.’ This leaves only Existence and Consciousness.

What is the relation between these two, Existence and Consciousness, and in what way can one or both of them account for what Cézanne describes as, ‘that which is always the same?’

Nature appears to us as form and concepts. Form is the raw data of the sense perceptions and concepts are the labels or interpretations, pieced together by the conceptualising power of mind.

There is also an element in our experience of an object or of nature, that is. Nature has Existence, Reality or Being. It is.

Although the appearances are changing all the time, their Existence or Reality doesn’t change from one appearance to another.

This Existence is not an intellectual theory. Although it cannot be perceived as an object, nevertheless it is expressed and experienced in every experience that occurs.

Cézanne calls this Existence or Beingness, which is always present and yet does not appear, ‘Eternity.’

Having discounted ‘that which appears’ as the source of nature’s Eternity, its only other possible source is either Existence, Being, the Isness of things, or Consciousness.

Existence or Being is present in every experience of an object and does not change or disappear when forms and concepts change and disappear, any more than water ceases to be water when a wave disappears.

There is a Reality to every perception although the perception itself is fleeting and insubstantial, vanishing at every moment, and this Reality endures from one appearance to another.

This Reality is the support or ground of the appearance. The appearance may be an illusion, but the illusion itself is real. There is an illusion. It has Reality.

The Reality of any experience is not hidden in the appearance, it is expressed by the appearance.

If we deeply explore the nature of any experience, we find that this Reality is its substance. It is the content of the appearance.

In fact it is only Reality that is ever, actually experienced.

Before this is evident, we see only appearances. After it is evident we see the appearance and the Reality simultaneously.

We do not see anything new. We see in a new way.

For instance, we may mistake a rope for a snake. The appearance, the form and concept of the apparent snake, does not describe the Reality of the rope.

However, the Reality of the rope is the substance of and is expressed by the snake. There is something that is real in our experience of the snake. It is the rope.

The rope is not hidden by the snake. In fact we only ever see the rope.

That which appears as snake is rope.

The experience of the appearance of the snake is the experience of the rope, only it is not known as such.

Fear of the snake is the natural outcome of this lack of clarity, and it vanishes instantaneously when the Reality of the rope is seen.

The snake cannot appear without the rope. The rope is the real substance, the Reality, of the appearance of the snake. Without the rope there would be no snake but without the snake, which never existed in the first place, there is still a rope.

So we know that nature is real, that there is something present, that there is a Reality to it, even if everything that appears to us is insubstantial and fleeting.

Whatever is real, by definition, endures. Something that is not present cannot be said to be real. Only that which is truly present can be said to be real, to have Reality.

We experience this vividly every time we wake from a dream. The appearance of the dream seemed to be real but on waking we discover that it was only a fleeting appearance within Consciousness.

The tiger in our dream seems to be real but on waking we discover that it was made of mind, and mind simply comprises appearances in Consciousness.

Consciousness is the Reality of mind. The tiger in the dream is unreal as ‘tiger’ but real as Consciousness.

When the tiger is present there is a Reality to it. The Reality of the tiger is Consciousness, which is its support, its substance and its witness.

Consciousness is not obscured by the tiger. It is Self-evident in the tiger. It knows itself in and as the appearance of the tiger.

Our objective experience in the waking state also comprises fleeting appearances in Consciousness. Therefore, in the ultimate analysis, there is no difference between the two states of dreaming and waking.

The substratum and the substance of the appearances in the dream and the waking states, their Reality, is identical and it remains after appearances have vanished.

The appearance is made only of its underlying Reality. The image in the mirror is made only of mirror.

This Reality is always present. We have never experienced its absence. And we have never experienced anything other than this Reality.

Change is in appearance only. There is only Reality taking the shape of this, and this and this.

How could something that is real become unreal? Where would its Reality go?

How could something whose nature, whose substance is Reality, become something else, become non-reality?

Whatever is real in our experience of nature or indeed of any object, whatever endures, whatever is truly experienced, is undeniably present in every experience.

Reality is the substance of every experience. It is the Existence, the ‘Beingness,’ the ‘Isness,’ the ‘Suchness,’ the ‘Knowingness,’ the ‘Experiencingness,’ in every experience.

And even when there is no objectivity present, such as in deep sleep or in the interval between appearances, this Reality remains as it always is.

This formless Reality is concealed or revealed by appearances depending on how we see.

Being without form, it cannot be said to have any limitations, because any limitation would have to have a form, would have to be experienced through the mind or the senses, in order to be an objective experience.

At the same time, what is being described here is an intimate fact of experience. There is something real in this experience now.

What is it in our experience that is undeniably and continuously present and yet has no external qualities?

The only answer to that question from our direct experience is Consciousness. Consciousness is undeniably experienced during any appearance and yet it has no objective qualities.

Therefore, Consciousness and Reality or Existence are both present in every experience.

What is the relationship between Consciousness and Existence?

If they were different there would have to be a border, a boundary between them. Do we experience such a boundary?

No! We have already acknowledged Consciousness and Existence, from our own intimate experience of both, as being undeniably present and also as having no objective defining qualities.

If they have no objective qualities how can they said to be separate or different? They cannot!

Therefore, whether we realise it or not, in our actual experience they are one, Consciousness/Existence, not Consciousness and Existence.

It is therefore our intimate, direct experience that Consciousness and Existence are one.

It is our direct experience that we, Consciousness, are Existence, that we are what the universe is.

In the Christian tradition, this understanding is expressed as, “I and my Father are one.” ‘I’ is Consciousness, that which ‘I’ truly am. The ‘Father’ is the Reality of the universe, God.

This expression, “I and my Father are one,” is an expression of the fundamental unity of Consciousness and Reality, of the Self with all things.

The fact that in this tradition ‘I’ has, in most cases, been consistently interpreted as referring to the a single body/mind, and that the ‘Father’ as a result, has for so many centuries, been consistently projected ‘outside’ at an infinite distance, should not obscure the meaning of the original statement.

click here to continue