Passion for Being...

I want to walk through life truly seeing - truly Aware...
Awake to the Presence of the Eternal Being that lives this life...

- the Life that animates all life...

I want to See everything as Living Aliveness;

with the same innocent wonder and amazement
as I did as a child, as if seeing Life living for the
first time...

I want to be in Love with life again -
if I ever was...

Maybe loving, and living life in new ways...

I want to Hear
the laughter of Life

in my Heart.

I want to Experience the Euphoria of
Life ItSelf, living ItSelf
in all its unfolding luminosity,
in the every-day-ness of life...

I want to Embrace
every thought,
expression,
and feeling
as it arises
without
trying
to
confine it,
or suppress it,
or correct it
before it is expressed.

Let me be free from entanglements
of the mind that keep me compliant
and complicit with the world's ways...

I want to risk not following the rules,
the protocols, the agendas of others;
the well-worn paths.

Instead - rising above the familiarity
of any "path" to see what's really here...

May I have the courage to speak
with fierce grace to those who
would try to quell this passion,
to strip this enthusiasm, to
suffocate this spontaneity,
to dim the radiance and
clarity of
the

Passion of Being!

Mystic Meandering
Jan. 2011

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering
reflection of stained glass on wall

(Holy Fire :)

Bare Awareness - Danna Faulds

Bare awareness
awake to its
true nature -
limitless and
vast, nothing to
grasp, no masks
or name tag.

What am I beyond
the answers of the
mind, outside
anything I can
find by seeking?

What is true
right now, and
what is transitory?

The witness watches
thoughts spin their
convincing stories
out of thin air and
doesn't care how
often I forget
that freedom is
the truth of being,
and no part of truth
is ever separate
from what is.

Danna Faulds
from: Limitless: 2009

~

Golden Sunset

The Deep "I" - Tim Freke

How we experience life depends on how conscious we are.
When we only pay attention to the surface of life
we're only superficially awake.  But when we look deeper
we can become deep awake...

I'm conscious of being alive...
But what is life?
I am experiencing this moment,
but what is this moment?

See the world with curious eyes.
Become intensely aware that you exist...

I am the mysterious presence called "I" that is
experiencing a stream of experiences.

But what is this "I"?

The Deep I is Awareness...
It has no tangible form...

We connect with each other Deep I to Deep I
all the time.  We are the Presence of Awareness that
can't be seen.  We are the formless spirit connecting through form...

Deep I to Deep I

When we see that, we become deep awake...

Tim Freke
Philosopher
Excerpts from his video
"The Deep Awake Life"

~

Photo - Eye of God Mandala
2013

In Delightful Wonderment - Bob O'Hearn

This magical realm we call “the world”

is a wild wonder beyond human reckoning!

The mere appearance of anything at all

is a perpetual mystery of pure awe

and relentless astonishment!

These ever-shifting props that provide

the sense of time and change are nothing

but children’s toys the Great One

juggles like batons in the air!

How thrilling to suddenly realize

we ourselves are This!

The synchronous majesty

of our infinitely expansive being

is the perfect body of the Beautiful One,

the One who is living us now, dreaming

us now as the very miracle we Are.

Any rain-splashed leaf is nothing

but another moistened kiss of Infinity.

Every wandering breeze rustling trees —

the amorous breath of our own Divinity.

Every sigh, every breath, every beat of heart

is an orchestrated choir of regal rapture.

Every molecule of light amazes itself

at its own inexplicable appearance.

Even as we sleep and dream

our sensitive thoughts conduct

a symphony of rippling pleasure.

This body standing here

is a delightful play of Love.

This mind —

an echo of a mystery

fashioned out of speechless Love.

We are Love, and Love must love,

for therein shines our perfect purpose.

Every blink and wink of our eyes

is the grace-bestowing sacred regard

of the original Lover, through Whose Glance

all are blessed, healed, given and taken —

all truly redeemed beyond any need

for make-believe redemption.

The chains that seem to bind us here

are merely our reluctance to forgive

and let go of a non-existent past.

No sad regret,

no hopeful anticipation,

everything just as it is –

this moment!

Each miniscule particle of light

swirling in the wake of our casual passing

ignites the ecstatic birth of galaxies —

we are made of This!

There is one Presence, one Power,

alive in all the universe, being lived

through Its uncountable expressions.

We are all unique projections

of that changeless Divine Energy

in which the myriad sentient personalities

flash and frolic as dreamy thought forms

dancing in the Heart/Mind of Source.

Drawn deeper into this stunning recognition,

all universal nature herself becomes transparent

as the manifestation of the Living Womb

of vast emptiness, delivering everyone

and everything into pure light

and more light still.

Every motion, every breath,

every thought and cessation of thought

is none other than the intense enjoyment,

the utter delight, the supreme pleasure

of the Indescribable Supreme!

This understanding can yield a great relief

of sufficiency and equanimity, regardless

of how things may seem to play out

in the drama’s consciousness’

ceaseless unfolding.

There is nothing that can be done,

no weeping or prayer, no exotic method

or any sort of strategy that can be manipulated

to attain this plain and simple realization;

no heroic gate-storming or self-generated effort

will yield true satisfaction, no practice nor

tweaking of attention can transcend itself.

Doing or not-doing are equally futile.

All achievement is transitory.

Even the most feeling submission

to the Living Source must be seen at last

as arising from a subtle, deluded sense

of division within the body/mind.

The clear light radiance of awake awareness

has no before or after, nor parts

that somehow come together

or randomly divide.

There is only This!

Such recognition is not an acquisition

of the mind, but rather a letting go

and awakening at the Heart —

our destiny and present condition —

when all that would obstruct clear seeing

is sacrificed at the altar of the Unconditional,

for the selfless sake of Love alone.

May all beings awaken to the bliss

of their own true nature –

their own primordial

brilliance!

Only This!

Bob O'Hearn
Feeling To Infinity

 ~

Photo: Glass Menagerie
Mystic Meandering

See Beyond the Facade...

“We are here to awaken
from the illusion of our separateness…”

Thich Nhat Hanh

“Darkness does not become light,
for there is only light…

You are Life ItSelf undivided
from the power that moves the planets.”

Jeff Foster

“Only when the mind is completely free
from yesterday,
and is therefore not using the present
as a means to the future,
is it capable of receiving
the eternal…”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

“…behind this outer façade,
another life is going on in you.”

John O’Donohue

Photos during snow fall Friday night…
Top two photos are of a street light...
And what looks like a building in those photos
is a reflection on the glass of a wall hanging -
an illusion of a building...

Outside the Box...

Life/Awareness/Existence/Consciousness
*delights* in expressing ItSelf,
delights in ItSelf, in Living ItSelf…

 *How* It expresses ItSelf really doesn’t matter to IT.

 Aware Consciousness has no concept of “non-dual awareness,”
 or “spiritual” language,
 or the concept of “spirituality”,
or religion…
 IT *sees* everything as ItSelf,
 and therefore not separate from ItSelf.

 The idea that Consciousness is “non-dual” does not even occur to IT.
IT just IS…

 It doesn’t *see* dualistically,
but apparently expresses ItSelf dualistically;
a paradox…
 It does not see the self, the me, as a problem to overcome,
 to get rid of, or merge with.
 The whole “me/no-me,” “self/no-self” dualistic concept doesn’t exist to IT.

 I constrained Beingness
 by subtly making those dualistic delineations,
 splitting Existence in two – in the mind – through thought;
 instead of just Being what I already knew myself to be.
 My SELF!
That is -

BEingness being ItSelf…
Consciousness aware of Itself as “me” – as ItSelf -
seamlessly and fluidly one Beingness…

What a relief!
 Such freedom!
 I can just BE!

 Living from the Heart of Being
 and not the framework, the mental scaffolding,
the “spiritual” self-image, the self-construct.

The Aliveness that wants to express here
was muted
 *through* constraining myself
 to the frameworks and scaffoldings of
 *conceptual* ideas,
 interpretations,
and beliefs…
trying to fit myself into a nice neat “spiritual” box,
with an appropriate label for future delivery.

 Evidently life is about
 *experiencing* that Aliveness now,
 aware of the Life that already lives me – “outside the box.”

Our Eternal Beingness experiences ItSelf through
all experiences,
all expressions,
whether happiness or unhappiness,
joy or sorrow,
as experienced through
this “me-mechanism.”

Beingness experiences ItSelf as everything…
and No-thing…
No distinction…

Bliss,
and beyond Bliss…
 

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
July 2011
Revised July 2012

You might also like:

Collapse the Scaffolding

Photo:

This affect is created by
using the “Invert” function
in Adobe Fireworks.
Taking a mediocre photo
and giving it life! -
looking as if lit from within :)

Wake Up and Laugh!

The other night, at 2am, I was awakened by a dream, not of my own making.  In actuality, I was hardly sleeping at all, when suddenly I was kicked hard in the shin by an errant foot.  I rose to one elbow, exclaiming OWwww, sounding more like an injured cat, to which DH broke out in uncontrollable gales of laughter.  I thought the laughter was part of the dream, but no – he had actually woken up and *realized* that he had been dreaming when he had kicked me, and thought it was hilarious, that what he had dreamed had become a projection into “reality” – projected outside the dream state as an actual kick landing on my shin.  As if they were *not* two separate realities… 

He tried to explain the dream through his belly laughter that I have only heard maybe 3 times in our 33 years.  It was rather delightful actually.  Next thing I knew I was uncontrollably laughing as well.  Not because the dream was so funny, but because my husband’s *reaction* to the fact that he woke up *within* the dream and actually kicked me *outside* of the dream, which threw him into further gyrations of laughter, was just too funny.  Pure, joyous, awakened laughter is catching.

The gist of the dream is that we were outside of a school.  I was standing to his right, and another man grounded a football to him from his left, and he kicked the ball – er my shin – as I slept to his left.  See, not all that funny.  But the reaction to the dream is what woke us up; the realization that his dream and "reality" were one reality.

I’ve heard it said that when we finally “wake up” to the Truth of Existence we start to laugh, realizing what we believed to be real is just a dream, a projection of the mind.  I used to believe this, but now I’m not so sure.  I’m a “direct experience” kind of gal, a woman passionate for Truth, who just wants to experience the Truth of Existence, who just wants to wake up to the Truth and laugh. I used to believe everything I was told was “The Truth.”  Now I’d prefer to experience Truth directly.  On the “path of awakening”, as I discovered, *everything* comes into question.  And I know that *my* mind could not have created this beautiful "dream" we call life…  Just look out your window…

I have had many moments of peeking through the veil that supposedly separates us from the Truth; moments of recognition and laughter; moments of awakening beyond what I *thought* was “the dream.” While walking down a walking path one day a couple of years ago, suddenly everything became more vivid, more vibrant, more *real.*  I realized that this was not a “dream”, but Aliveness Itself, living Here – as THIS.  I actually laughed and cried at the same time – experiencing the radiant brilliance of the Inherent Aliveness that infuses everything.

Calling it a “dream”, or an illusion, seems like a misnomer – to me. :)  It implies that existence, as we know it, isn’t “real.”  But it *is* real.  It is Alive!  Even after “awakening” from/to “the dream”, this thing we *call* “the dream” continues.  It is being lived.  The only difference is – when we wake up, we see what’s behind the dream – the Consciousness, the Inherent Awake Awareness operating *in* and *as* “the dream.”  Everything becomes fully alive – fully real.  We see what we *thought* was “the dream” as being separate from “Reality” is really one fluid, effortless movement of Being, a radiant brilliance of Aliveness, not an “illusion.”  We feel and experience the hum of Life, the Light of Life *in* and *as* everything.  Not either/or - not separate.  Consciousness never sees Itself as anything other than Itself, as anything other than Real – even the so-called “dream.”  We see that what is considered “the dream” is Life living ItSelf in form, an expression of Consciousness ItSelf.  

Everything is Alive
Consciousness

Everything is Nothing
and Nothing is Everything.

Form is formless,
Formless is form…

It’s all Awareness,
expressions of Consciousness,
enjoying the experience of ItSelf…

Wake up and laugh!

Up In Smoke ~ ~ ~

I awoke Thursday with the usual feeling of “fear and dread” that constricts the body before rising.   I recognize it each morning and wonder where it comes from.  I am not conscious of what the mind must be thinking to create such a state before awakening that would leave such a residue.  It indicates to me that there must be something *before* the first thought, some automatic conditioning in the body-mind that kicks in as I awake.  There is and always has been this ever-present “Fear Gate.” 

Settling into the meditation chair, after lighting the candles, and striking the bowl – I journaled a few notes before meditation, as is my practice - noting that the “Fear Gate” had closed tight around me; also noting how it keeps me on the edge, on the surface, unable to go deeply into the core of Beingness.

As I was sitting, feeling the struggle of resistance trying to meet the fear, something caught my eye.  I had lit a stick of incense, as I always do, just outside the room I sit in, out of view, so as not to overwhelm the small room (and myself) with smoke.  But my attention was suddenly captured by swirls of smoke passing by the door, dancing in the sunlight streaming in from the skylight.  I got up to experience the phenomena more fully, and managed to “capture” a few shots of the swirling smoke.

I love how Life presents us with metaphors for the things we tend to struggle with.  And of course we can read any meaning into it that we want.  But if we listen Life speaks to us in ways that we can hear and understand.

I continued to watch in wonderment as the smoke from the incense danced in the light, leaving intricate fluid designs that changed and dissipated into haze – there and gone.  The dance of form and formlessness, taking shape and dissipating fluidly, dancing with the air currents effortlessly…  And it became clear what the “spiritual teachers” say - how solidly we *perceive* things to be – our thoughts, feelings, emotions, beliefs, opinions, our selves, life, etc.  Yet they are just smoke, forming and dissipating with the movement of life – unless – we try to hold onto them, grasping at smoke with our mind – believing them and making them solid.

After the dance of light and smoke I was pleasantly surprised to find that the sense of fear and dread was gone.  It had dissipated – like the smoke.    Curiosity and playfulness *allowed* the solidification of the fear to dissipate from the mind, from focus - even if momentarily.  Through curiosity and playfulness the “Fear Gate” released and I evidently entered a state of open Awareness.  

 

Fear is of the “me-mind” - and the “me” contracts into fear – the form of fear.  Our formless Beingness (True Nature) holds no grip on fear and is not constrained by fear’s form.  It is totally free of fear and only experiences fear through the “me-function” – the particular arrangement of thoughts, feelings, beliefs and identifications that we call “me.”   But in wide open Awareness there is no fear – only the dance of smoke and light.   I know these things to be true, hearing them all before, and yet I continue to fear – amazing.  What was understood in this phenomena of smoke was that when we occupy the space of inherent Awareness fear loses its grip – opens its gate and dissipates – if only in that moment.  But it was enough to allow me to see what I needed to see, which was that *everything* is smoke, *everything* dissipates back into the open space of fluid, formless Aware Consciousness.  We only need to bring our attention to that Space – the space of inherent Conscious Awareness that is curious and unafraid; instinctive – not reactive; intuitive – not based in mental concepts.  It is aware of *everything* but does not *identify* itself *as* or with anything, including feelings, emotions, and thoughts – or the “me” - but remains unaffected and effortlessly fluid.

Having this re-cognition does not mean that the feeling of “fear and dread” has burned away completely.  I still woke up today in the smoke swirls of fear and dread – totally disappointed that my insight wasn’t a “cure.”  It’s a deeply engrained automatic pattern.  And it feels like an ongoing process of re-orientation - of turning again and again to the awareness of  the wide open space of Aware Consciousness, remembering that what I believe to be me, my thoughts, my feelings, and “my life” are just ~ smoke ~~~~  

  

The Awareness and Joy Of Being...

“Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born…”

David Whyte
From: The Winter of Listening
The House of Belonging

Open awareness
changes us…

There is magic in deep listening,
in open awareness,
in Silence.
There is a subtle
but utterly reorienting shift
of perspective…
One finds oneself, locates oneself
as Here and Now and This.

It is only in those times of
deep listening, awareness
and Silence
that I know who I really am.

This Silence,
this deep listening,
is what we have been
looking for,
for a long, long time.

Remembering the stillness
at the heart
of our own lives
reunites us with
everything…

The Natural Contemplative

“To be awake is to be
unconditionally
open
to all that is.
To stay awake
is to surrender
totally
to unedited
and
unrestricted
awareness…”

Scott Morrison
Daily Dharma

When you become
very open and relaxed,
you can suddenly
be aware that
something else
is occupying
your body-mind.

Something else
is looking out from
your eyes,
listening from
your ears,
and feeling
your feelings.

Awakeness is inherent
in all things
and all beings
everywhere,
all the time…

You realize that behind
all your desires
was a single desire:
to experience
each moment
from your
true nature…

Adyashanti

Still Clearing the Dead Wood...

I’m still pruning and clearing the deadwood here. :)

And I thought I’d share my observations.

As with stepping back and looking at the tree to see where it needs pruning, it seems I have to keep stepping back to look at myself with the Light of Awareness, to see what needs pruning - or else life will show me through situations and events :) like it just did in the previous 2 posts – here and here - showing me the dead wood of ignorance, and the branches of self-delusion that I have become entangled in recently.  Pruning sometimes requires surgical precision.  And sometimes the dead wood practically falls off by itself once the clear seeing of Awareness occurs. 

Clearing the dead wood, as I’m discovering, is also a process of stepping back to discover the Life that is already Here; that which is living this life called “me”, seeing beyond the dead wood to what thrives within, and what is experiencing this life being lived in every moment – Consciousness ItSelf…   But for some reason I keep clinging to the dead wood, erroneously believing what the mind tells me, with its emotionally habituated responses, in some kind of perpetual relationship…

This pruning and clearing away of the dead wood is an internal process of clearly seeing the beliefs, the mental concepts, emotional reactivity, the conceptual frameworks and structures that I have lived by, even “the spiritual paths” I’ve traveled down, that no longer reflect the Truth, that don’t allow Aliveness to thrive, that no longer allow flow with the movement of Life.  They must be seen through to the spaciousness of Truth ItSelf…

I recently heard a definition of ignorance as the inability to see clearly the Truth of who we really are – our True Nature, our Beingness – the simple Silent Awareness that is not reactive to any life situation but sees and allows *every* situation (and also allows for action when needed).  But somehow I keep forgetting to see life with this Light of Awareness and I get all hung up on the deadwood, living from the place of ignorance, identified *with* the story of the “bad” neighbor, or irritating husband, the failing economy, the unfairness of life, the dysfunctional needy family, or my emotionally fractured self, etc. – all stories that reinforce the inability to see clearly, leaving me veiled to the Truth of my Being.

It’s an ongoing cyclical process, this pruning and clearing.  It always seems to come around as life spirals onward to new awarenesses, new openings of Truth – revealing ItSelf.  It’s a natural process actually.  Who I believe myself to be is pruned away in order for the Truth to be revealed.  There’s no getting comfortable on the “spiritual path.”  It seems “the path” is about staying open and aware, pruning what is no longer needed, what no longer allows the Truth to be seen, and allowing the bare bones Truth that is already there to be intimately known; not arriving at or attaining any special state of “enlightenment” as a one time event that we can claim for ourselves as yet another identity – but being continually opened by Life, to the Heart of Being, and allowing the Truth that is there to unfold in and through us.  In doing so we are pruned – until we see beyond the deadwood of ignorance and self-delusion.

If I ask – Who/What am I really?  What is really here?  Or, what is the Truth in this situation? – in a meditative way - not looking for answers in the mind, but in the Heart of Being - I see that paradoxically I am both the story *and* Aware Consciousness in which this story of “me” plays out.  Not either/or, but one and the same.  In some ways “the stories” we find ourselves in become “the teaching” if we’re paying attention and not being absorbed and defined by our stories – as I was just recently.  Often what we dismiss as story shows us where we most need pruning, where we need to see clearly, in order to thrive in the Truth.  And sometimes the best teaching comes out of our own failings to see clearly – once we see…

And it is then seen that thriving in the Truth of who we are is really a matter of recognizing the living Truth that we are, the Spaciousness in which the story of our life occurs – like the clouds that are suspended in the spaciousness of the sky. In spending time in meditative Silence, in the Spaciousness of Pure Awareness, I recognize that the Truth is so much vaster and clearer than the stories I’ve been telling myself *about* “the situation.”  The Truth of Pure Beingness that we are always sees clearly…  It’s where we thrive… 

Who Are You.....Really?

I found this beautifully inspiring video...

It was words I needed to hear,
to Remember…
May they inspire you too…

Video by: Kosi

The voice is Gangaji