"Zero" Baseline of Existence?
Last week, I shared about the notion of “zeroing” as a practice of self-awareness, of regularly zeroing one’s scale in order to account for the weight that already exists (i.e., one’s personal story, history, biases, assumptions, preferences, culture, etc.), to enable an accurate measurement of new stuff, as opposed to new stuff being confounded by the existing weight already on the scale. Any time we notice the weight we are bringing to an experience (the weight of our personal container on the scale), we give ourselves the opportunity to measure what is new in this moment as truly new, such as a person, or a meal, or simply the sensation of walking. And this reminds me of Fritz Perls’ definition of psychological health:
“The ability to see what is new as new.”
I also think of this “zeroing” term in another related, but maybe deeper, sense. Imagine that we start out as humans at the very beginning, however you define that, at a sort of Zero baseline level of existence. Once we’re born, the “weight” I refer to above begins to build on top of this Zero; we develop a personality, a collection of experiences, a way of seeing the world based on those experiences… the weight of our container on the scale grows heavier and we move further and further away from this baseline Zero level of existence.
I have a sense that this Zero that was there at the beginning, and is still there underneath all of the weight of the container, is the same, the exact same, in everyone and everything. This is my understanding of what it means for us all to be connected, that we are no different from each other and from the universe; that there is, inside of us, deep down, the same basic Zero of existence.
The practice of meditation, to me, is like dropping back down toward Zero, and the closer we get to that Zero experience, the more possibility is available to us, the more we can weigh what is new in this moment as truly new, and the more we might be able to feel directly into that connection with Everything. My guess is this might be the experience of what some refer to as God (what do you think?). And through this felt connection, this feeling into the unifying Zero, the problems of “One” as distinct from Zero (i.e., “I,” “me,” “my”) no longer make sense, or at least their meaning is transformed.
At dinner with two of our close friends last night, my awesome wife mentioned the analogy of a thread and a quilt that I think goes well with this Zero concept. Once the thread actually feels itself to be part of, not different from, the quilt, something shifts. I think we can celebrate our threadness and simultaneously remember and practice returning to the baseline Zero that connects the entire quilt. We are the thread and the quilt.
I’ll leave you with a favorite quote of mine from Ram Dass that simplifies this concept:
“The quieter you become
the more you can hear.”