Interview: Suvaco

(soft piano music)

- Hi, I'm Richard Lang and today I'm talking

with my friend, Suvaco.

- Hello Richard,

and hello everybody watching this.

- Yes.

I'd just like to talk a little bit

about how you came across seeing headlessness

and what it's meant to you in your life and so on.

So, where did it start for you

in terms of the headlessness?

What led up to it?

- Yeah, that's thanks...

How to answer the question...

Well, I think there's a level first,

it's important to say that...

I can't really say what led up to headlessness

or how I started seeing.

There might have been moments early in my life

when this was evermore present.

There is not a sense of it
started at a certain time.

However, if you speak in terms

of what we'll consider headlessness

as taught by Douglas Harding,

it is slightly remarkable.

I was living in a very, very remote monastery

on an island on the Thai border with Laos,

a place with no electricity.

And at a certain point, somebody,

and I never knew who, cleared out his library

and decided to donate his books.

So, there was a mixture of Thai and English books

to this remote monastery,

where we were just two, three,

literally two, three English-speaking monks.

And among the many strange books,

there was, you know,

even pieces from Jehovah's Witnesses

or old collections of the Bible,

and books on insight meditation.

There was book called On Having No Head,

which I picked up.

It called me.

And upon reading it, I was sold.

It was wonderful.

It was a breath of fresh air.

I'm in a period...

This was my earliest time as a monk.

- Roughly, what year are we talking about?

- So we're talking year in '91.

In a time when there was very much

still the sense of having to get established

in meditation and in disciplines,

and somehow, at the same time,

in came, out of nowhere,

this sense of it's all right here.

And somehow, that has always stayed with me.

Although, perhaps not always consciously,

but even by reading the book,

I saw.

Something I remember was like (gasps)

my goodness, it is so true.

And then, wonder of wonder,

a couple years later, I think it was in '94,

perhaps '95,

while I lived in the UK,

I went for one of our...

We have this, in this tradition,

the sense of going on walk abouts,

where we just kind of go, in trust.

So we take a vote

and we just leave the safety of the monastery

and see what happens if we leave it.

And one of these walks,

I had an address of some--

I was supposed to be with another monk

around Ipswich, and the only address we have

was of a certain Douglas Harding,

who immediately answered back,

"But of course, come."

And I am having a gathering.

- So this is '94 or something like that?

- [Suvaco] '94, '95, as far as I remember.

First time I met you, Richard.

- Right.

- And what was very important was

beside the experiments,
which was absolutely phenomenal

for me to try out because of the...

I daresay, around the monastic convention,

there is that slight sense that remains of,

I am this

endarkened person, who has to do these practices,

meditation or otherwise,

I'm on way to enlightenment.

I am a seeker.

And also, of course,
every day you're reminded

that you ain't, perhaps, in a subtle way,

certainly in my case,

the forms reenforce that.

The forms meaning the daily meditations

where you're always like, oh, my mind is still scrambled,

or how come I ain't experiencing the great bliss?

And somehow, just this freshness

of actually having immediate experiments,

the pointing finger, or dukkah,

it allowed an openness that I hadn't allowed myself.

And the important point was, of course,

it was not as if I discover something new.

It was if, yes, I recognize this freedom.

- [Richard] Familiar.

- It's familiar, it's...

So it really is an act of familiarization,

but what was very, very important

was Douglas, at that moment, would point out to me,

and here there is no hierarchy of seers.

You can say that Douglas sees better

because he has done this longer.

He had a way of, where I felt really empowered

and this is it.

And I think this is the key point

that I find with meeting Douglas

and practice of headlessness,

a unique contribution, that in a nonverbal way,

and direct experiences, direct experiments,

it actually hammers home the obviousness,

that we always already are waking as we are.

There's absolutely nothing that we need "doing."

So emptiness is always on tap.

- So, it sounds as though it

fits in very well with your monastic life.

- Indeed, it does.

I think that coming back to the monastery,

I had a sense of, well, this is actually

the point from which I can begin
to live a monastic life,

because, in a way then...

In a conventional reality, the life of a monk

is actually set up in a way

that if you, you know,

it's not as if you have to get caught up

in what about my mortage?

Or, what about my retirement?

We all have ways in which we postpone awakening

because something in us is not yet trusting.

There's something that says,

yes, as soon as I have done this or that,

then I can be awakened.

And of course, even in a monastery,

that patterning continues.

But it was as if, however,

the monastic setting is not to be taken so seriously.

In some way, you know,

it's a conventional reality being a monk,

but there is a level...

It's held a bit tongue in cheek.

So I found that was also great support

in actually, the lifestyle in itself

allows plenty of opportunities
to actually lean back and see.

And there was a little group of monks.

I think we were four of us
who had met Douglas.

So we met up regularly and did experiments together.

- And how do you think it affects your relationships

with people, with friends, with whoever?

The face to no face seeing?

'Cause relationships are the
important area to think about.

- Oh yeah, absolutely.

I think also the question,

the question you ask is even deeper.

In a way, you know,

not only your relationship with people,

dare I say with that which we think as the other.

So, whether it is my relationship

even with a thought or a feeling

or with other people,

is it a relationship in which I set up

a somebody, you know...

Often, Douglas used to call it head to head to head

or residual space for that face

that appears over there.

Or can I actually be the space

that allows any formation to arise and cease?

And I'm humbled, this is a continuous act

where I'm learning.

It's an act of trust, really.

If I fully allow the other to be,

and of course, we have to sit through

our own inner...

We have an agenda always,

a subtle agenda with the world.

And is it possible, actually, to lean back

and let, yeah, let this be?

So that changes profoundly
my relationship with the other.

I become the openness for the other.

And with people particularly...

In the start, perhaps, it can sound a bit

like a technique, a way, you know,

that maybe I put up with others.

If I don't like them by being spaciousness.

But more, it's actually become,

I find over the years,

it's more like a heartfelt sense

of being with others.

And it is really so that to hear in the silence,

to hear two voices, two people arising,

and being the space for both of them,

and also the feelings that arise

between the two people in this sense.

So I recognize myself and find myself

in the other, or as the other.

Do you find something?

- Yes, two voices now in the one silence.

- Yes, yes.

- Wonderful, isn't it? Isn't it?

- Isn't it marvelous?"
- Yes, alive.

- Yes.

- Unpredictable.
- Yes.

And a sense of, kind of,

a bit like [PWOSH (makes hand gesture to smile)]

- (laughs) Yeah.

"Awe" .. "awe" is the word

- What about trusting it?

What are your thoughts about...

We sometimes talk about trusting
who we are and so on.

What are your thoughts about trust?

- Yeah, that's big.

That's another big subject, which...

There is a level where perhaps the first thing

that comes to heart is,

oh my goodness, I have so little trust.

In a way, the essence of,

the essence of Suvaco is built around

fear or contraction or defense,

and the very act of seeing

or, in this case,

when I actually really see the fear

that it begins to dissolve it.

It erodes in a way.

So seeing is, it certainly in my experience here,

it's the erosion, and this is a gradual work.

And it's not something I can apply technically,

saying, "Oh, I really feel afraid now.

"Oh, let me just go back to seeing."

It doesn't seem to work like that at all.

It seemed to really fully feel,

fully noticing it,

the anxiety or the fear.

If I really am and fully stay with this "thing"

as it arises, this other that I call fear,

and somehow that begins to transform it,

having a relationship with it.

And in a way, there I begin to, say, trust.

So, trust not in enlightenment, or in God,

but trust in the immediacy that it is well.

Even that which is difficult
is a something to be embraced.

So, in a way, of course, with seeing in itself

it is so immediate.

And then, of course, it is also
that we're gonna find it as multilayered.

Endless discoveries, perhaps.

- In what way multilayered?

- Multilayered, that seeing is also hearing.

It's also deeply sensing and deeply feeling.

We arise with all the sense thoughts

from moment to moment.

- It's where you're coming from.

- [Suvaco] It is, yeah.

- Whatever we call it.

- Another way, I don't know how...

I don't know how relevant it is
in the context of seeing,

but over the years,

the other really great, should we say,

support in stabilizing,

so one thing is, as you know, seeing it,

another is being it.

That it just becomes a more relaxed

and continuous sense of being.

There I found the sense of listening,

and listening to

what is called the sound of silence,

so this is if, in the very act of relaxing

into the wider field of listening,

this high pitch

resonates.

And that gives also, really,
another very, very clear background

in which I can hear the sound of this voice,

I can see you, and how it all arises,

and sees upon this continuous shimmering sound

as a background.

That is not quite, again,
it's a bit like seeing.

It's not quite localizable.

Is it inside? Is it outside?

Is it both? Is it...?

It is global.

Yeah.

- You're training in craniosacral therapy?

How does this awareness

inform your experience in that field?

- Oh, that's a wonderful question.

Even more so, it is, again, it...

So, what this work of seeing is,

is again, I find it is endless discoveries,

and the discovery that even through touch,

and putting your hand on another person,

and listening, and being completely open

and silent, it allows something to happen

in both the seer, or the giver and the receiver.

(mumbling) And I find that that is marvelous,

that sense of, you empty,

and the more you step back and empty yourself,

the more you give the space
for the other to come forward.

- It's something to unfold.
- Yeah.

- And I think this is really the essence, actually,

of it, that sense of if we...

Perhaps, the word there again is trust.

When we step back, and we allow the world

to arise and cease.

So often, in Buddhist jargon,

there is this sense of, you know,

it sums up everything that arises, ceases,

and on there is a great emphasis
for many people of wanting so badly

to make everything go to cessation

so we become detached, we become the subtle one

who is observing this dream, you know,

this slightly constructed self
of a somebody who is beyond it.

But actually, if we fully

allow something to arise,

that is what I'm really excited about,
these things, actually.

That act of trust, that sense of curiosity,

this is a complete new something.

And so it's something almost with like,

it takes me a bit...

I don't have any safety.

It drives me a bit in an uncertain territory

and then, if I fully let this come in,

and I don't know what will happen.

Will it ever end?

What will happen to me?

Oh dear, I better go back to seeing

or whatever ways we have,

but no, can I trust in..?

If I let it, if I welcome it as it comes,

and then the question is,

can I then witness,

can I then, again, see it as it goes?

Yet another condition.

So in a way, you know, it allows that flow of life.

- So creative.
- It is.

It's another wonderful expression.

It is endlessly creative.

And you and I are, again,

we are creations in it.

- Yes, wonderful.

- It is, isn't it?

- And perhaps one more question here, Suvaco.

What about suffering?

Seeing and suffering, if you like.

Buddhism is hot on the end of suffering, I think.

- Yes, I think it is,

it, again, is on the...

How shall I put it in a few words?

Perhaps, in the Buddhist corner

on the spiritual market,

particularly the doctrinal take,

a way in which the word,

the classical word dukkha,

which means stressful, as if you knew

everything that arises and ceases,

by its nature, it is changeable,

and it is stressful.

It is not a value judgment, it just is.

That is how this universe is.

So, recognizing that it is like this,

that there is a sense of (sighs),

we don't expect it to be otherwise.

I think that's the key.

The suffering comes because
we expect conditions to be otherwise.

So, there is that level of daring to say yes to life.

- Including all.

- Hopefully.

And then I say, you know, ooh.

When you say the ooh, touch wood. (laughs)

Because we all experience these moments, you know,

when it is overwhelming.

I think my experience has been, Richard,

that actually,

the bare experience of being

a human being in a separate form,

and experiencing the world through the senses

even under best conditions,

it is a rather overwhelming experience.

And to acknowledge also

that often we are overwhelmed,

so when people act out of patterns of fear

and violence and self contraction,

to hold both ourselves and others

with that sense of it is

and it really comes from a place of overwhelm.

- And how does what we might call the seeing

or whatever you want to call it,

how does that help you cope with

that kind of situation?

- It doesn't.

I will put it slightly different,

that it has never been my experience

that "seeing" helps me.

Again, that's making a thing out of seeing.

What I notice is

seeing doesn't solve anything,

but it dissolves the one,

even just for a moment, so like now,

it dissolves the one who "thinks"

or feels like he has a problem.

And of course, as it is,

it can be sometimes, you know,

the overwhelm that is so strong that I'm,

a second later, the somebody's back again.

(Richard gasps)

And then again, the very act of seeing,

let go,

so here it is again.

So the seeing doesn't solve anything, I would say.

I prefer, my experiences being it dissolves

the one who thinks that this is a problem.

And emotional distress takes
sometimes a little bit longer.

It certainly can dissolve immediately,

the thinking.

If you find that the mind is spinning around,

there, it's gone.

And yet of course, (inaudible),

there can still be a reaction that sticks.

And that also, so that's again,

so then we bring attention to that.

And that can be a little bit more gradual.

- Wonderful.

Share the two voice in the one silence--

- It is.
- Do you see it?

Coming out of nowhere.

Thank you very much.

- Thank you, Richard.

(soft piano music)