The Natural Mind - Robert Wolfe

You want to know what is meant when you see the phrase
"thought-free."

If you [question] whether you are thought-free or
not thought-free, would it be possible to be "thought-free",
in that circumstance?

As the Dzogchen Rinpoche Tulku Orgyen has commented:

When you ask: "Is there a thought; or (am I) free of thought? -
 isn't that just another thought?

The following teachers speak of a "natural" mind.  During your day,
all sorts of thoughts come and go, spontaneously arising and
dissolving, like surf washing upon a beach.  Isn't this what is
natural to all of us?

Tulku Rinpoche has said: "It is not beneficial to continuously
pursue a special, thought-free mental state. Rather, simply
allow yourself to be in naturalness, free of any fabrication";
that is, conceiving of, and attempting to engineer, some
special state of mind or condition of thought.  "Thought-free
means free of conceptual thinking."

Tulku's eldest son, Chokyi Nyima also says:

"When leaving this fresh ordinary mind as it is, without
correcting or modifying it, without altering it in any way,
without accepting and rejecting, there is no fixating on
anything.

In the present moment, do not correct,
Do not modify,
Do not accept or reject.
Don't try to rearrange your present wakefulness.
Instead, leave it as it naturally is
Without any attempt to alter it in any way.
That is called sustaining your natural face."

Another son of Tulku Rinpoche, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche,
speaks in detail about the innate naturalness of the mind free
of such dualistic concepts as thought versus no thought:

"Like many of the people I now meet on teaching tours, I
thought that natural mind had to be something else, 
something different from, or better than, what I was already
experiencing.  Like most people, I brought so much
judgment to my experience.  I believed that thoughts of anger,
fear and so on (that came and went throughout the day) were
bad or counter productive - or at the very least inconsistent
with natural peace!  The teachings of the Buddha is that if
we allow ourselves to relax and take a mental step back, we
can begin to recognize that all these different thoughts are
simply coming and going within the context of an
unlimited mind, which, like space, remains fundamentally
unperturbed by whatever occurs within it.

"All you have to do is rest your mind in its natural openness.
No special focus, no special effort, is required.  And if for
some reason you cannot rest your mind, you can simply
observe whatever thoughts, feelings, or sensations come
up and acknowledge, 'Oh, that's what's going on in my
mind right now.'  Wherever you are, whatever you do,
it's essential to acknowledge your experience as something
ordinary, the natural expression of your true mind.  If you
don't try to stop whatever is going on in your mind, but
merely observe it, eventually you'll begin to feel a 
tremendous sense of relaxation, a vast sense of openness
within you mind - which is in fact your natural mind,
the natural unperturbed background against which 
various thoughts come and go."

Robert Wolfe

With thanks to No Mind's Land

~

Photo - From a CD cover

"Be There" - Jeff Foster

You cannot truly "be there" for another
until you learn to "be there" for yourself.

Be there.  Be a loving witness
to the extraordinary power that moves through you.
Be there for all your feelings, not just the pleasant ones.
Be there for the grief and anger, too.

The ease and frustration.

Be there for the sorrow, the emptiness and the fullness,
the wildness and the calm, the life and the dying.
Be there for all your thoughts.
The ones you love and the ones you hate.
The ones that scare you and the ones you seek.
Be there as they arise and dissolve.
Stay there as they stay and go.
Be there for the broken heart
and be there for the healed one too.
Be there for the answers,
but don't abandon the questions either.
Be there for the clarity,
but don't neglect the confusion.

Be there for all of yourself.
Like a mother, there for her children.
And you will be able
to be there for all of me...

Jeff Foster

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

To Meditate or not to Meditate - Amoda Maa

To meditate... or not to meditate?

Is a dedicated mediation practice the only road to
"enlightenment"... or is the direct rout of recognizing
"what is already free" a better way?  Should all effort be
put into achieving a "higher state of consciousness?... or is
it best to simply let go of any effort to do anything at all?

If I discipline myself to meditate, should I sit (preferably
cross-legged) once a day... or is it twice or maybe three times?
And should I watch my breath... or is it my thoughts, or my
sensations?  Maybe I should chant in Sanskrit... or Hindi or
Japanese?  Maybe I should repeat the sacred OM from my heart...
or is my belly a better place?  Maybe I should send loving
thoughts in every out-breath... or visualize golden light from
my third eye?  Maybe I should try to focus on the gaps between
thoughts... or maybe I should just try to stop thinking all together?

And if I make no effort, how do I "awaken"?  Isn't there something
I need to do?  How do I transcend thinking?  How do I shift into an
"awakened state?"  Maybe if I read enough books or listen to enough
spiritual teachers, I will "get it"?

To meditate... or not to meditate?  The question is a conundrum
to the mind that seeks satisfaction.  The mind seeks a definitive
answer, as if this would bring an end to mind's unease.  The
personhood seeks certainty, as if the certainty of "spiritual
progress" would bestow a badge of worthiness or specialness.

But the question of meditation cannot be answered by the mind.
It can only be realized when Silence has become the bedrock of
your life.  This Silence is not about closing the doors, turning off
the phone and lighting candles.  Nor is it to do with trying to get
rid of your thoughts [or your ego, or the notion of I/me]...
or imagining the perfect sanctuary of peace.

This Silence happens when you stop giving attention to the
narratives that wrap themselves around your experience of reality.

This Silence happens when you turn towards tenderness every time
an unwanted feeling enters your inner landscape.  This Silence
happens when you have surrendered all resistance to what is.
This Silence happens when you are no longer the center of your
universe, when you have become without a center and [you realize
that] the whole universe is in you.  Without resistance, there is
no inner conflict, no inner division, no outside and no inside, no
barrier and no boundary.

When you know your true nature as Silence, there is no need to
do meditation... [because] you ARE meditation.  True meditation
is a state of Being.  It is your natural open state, there is nothing to
move away from and nothing to move towards.  You are simply
and irrevocably here.  There is no longer a question... because
in Silence all questions fall away.

So, it is not about whether you meditate or not.  It's about whether
you can fall into the Silence that is always here prior to your
ideas of what meditation is, or what it can give you, or where
it can take you.  Whether you sit in deep stillness or whether you
are doing something in this world, [the requirements of daily living]
 this Silence is always here... it is in you as Being-ness [your inner
Beingness]. Beingness does not need to do meditation... 
It IS meditation...

I am often asked whether I meditate or not... and I sort of shake my
head, unable to give a definitive answer.  Did I used to do meditation?
Yes.  Until meditation swallowed me up and all that was left was
Silence.  Now the whole of life is meditation, without doing a practice,
without trying to get anywhere, without trying to change anything.
Now... I AM meditation.

So perhaps it is wise to ask a different question...  how can I meet
the world [live my daily life] as Silence?  Perhaps the question
will turn the mind around from its horizontal searching into the
verticality of Being that is always here.  And then you discover
what true meditation is...

Amoda Maa

with gratitude to Michel at No Mind's Land

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Creating Enmity - J. Krishnamurti

Surely that thing which you fight you become.  If I am angry
and you meet me with anger what is the result?  More anger.
You have become that which I am.  If I am evil and you fight
me with evil means then you also become evil, however
righteous you may feel.  If I am brutal and you use brutal
methods to overcome me, then you become brutal like me.
And this we have done for thousands of years.  Surely there
is a different approach than to meet hate by hate.  If I use
violent methods to quell anger in myself then I am using
wrong means for a right end, and thereby the right end
ceases to be.  In this there is no understanding.  Anger is
to be understood; it is not to be overcome through violent
means.  Anger may be the result of many causes and
without comprehending them there is no escape from anger.

We have created the enemy, and becoming ourselves the enemy
in no way brings about an end to enmity.  We have to understand
the cause of our enmity and cease to feed it by our thought,
feeling, and action.  This is an arduous task demanding constant
self-awareness [and Self awareness] and intelligent pliability,
for what we are society is...  The enemy and the friend are
the outcome of our thought and action.  We are responsible for
creating enmity and so it is more important to be aware of our
own thought and action than to be concerned with the foe and
the friend, for right thinking puts an end to division.
Love transcends the friend and the enemy.

J. Krishnamurti
from: The Book of Life

via - The Beauty We Love

Egocentricity & Suffering - Cheri Huber

Egocentricity is the process of wanting something other than
what is.  Egocentricity means there is an "I" who [feels]
separate from everything else and doesn't like it; one thing is
happening, but I want a different thing to be happening
[which causes suffering].  Egocentricity is that constant
concern with how I feel, what I think, what I'm doing, what
I want - looking at what is and seeing it as inadequate.
My identity is maintained by the struggle of wanting
something other than what is [causing suffering].

Instead of spending our time trying to avoid suffering,
we must find the willingness to go directly into it.
Whenever anything causes us to suffer, we can know
two things: suffering is the same as egocentricity, and
when it arises, that is our best opportunity to end suffering.
As we open to suffering, as we embrace it, as we accept it,
our relationship to it changes. It is no longer horrible,
something to escape from.  Suffering becomes just
another opportunity [for awareness], another chance for
freedom [from egocentricity].

Cheri Huber

Zen Teacher

~

"The Heart has no ego"

Gregg Braden

~

The real state of things is suffering, aging illness, death -
life as it is...

We are in a body inside of time...
Suffering is on a primitive level...

author unknown

~

Personal note:  I know from my own experience that there
are many causes of "suffering" and different kinds of "suffering",
like poverty, abuse, terrorism, physical and emotional pain,
but I found this explanation from Cheri Huber interesting with
regard to the personal cause of "suffering."  And as I recently
discovered, the egoic mind (my incessant thoughts) is one of the
 major causes of my emotional suffering...

Good Medicine - Andrew Colliver

Unbelief is good medicine, undoing belief
better:

all beings free to leave their being
and enter silence.

The nameless tree with its forest
of green,
the endless expanse called
sky, beaks and

feathered wings with their urgent
conversations;
all around, the light that sets the vital body
to humming,

and the dark of re-creation:

the world held for us in promise
until it is loosed from
our thinking.

Andrew Colliver

Poetry Chaikhana

Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

The rebel in me likes this poem, especially its opening line...
"Unbelief is good medicine, undoing belief
better:"

I don't take this as a commentary on belief vs. atheism or agnosticism
or any of those artificial dichotomies of thought.  This is a commentary
on thought itself, our perception of reality, our relationship to reality.

All belief, whether good or bad, orthodox or unorthodox, is a window
we set in the mind.  Its frame defines the boundaries of what we
 perceive and what we are blind to; its tinted glass colors what we see
 and how we understand it.  That window of belief often serves the
 important purpose of helping us to focus, training us to see what is not
 commonly recognized. But, at a certain point in our awakening
 process, the very notion of belief becomes a problem.  All belief,
no matter how elevated or pure or accurate, is only a thought
 about reality.  What the soul ultimately craves is direct perception
 of reality - which requires dropping all perceptual filters,
including belief itself.

To enter that state of direct perception ("all beings free to leave their
 being/ and enter silence") requires deep silence.  The distorting
 vibrations of mind must quiet.  Get quiet enough and even the sense of
 ego fades, along with all its demands that it be seen as the center
of existence.  The various tugging and tremors of awareness melt away
 and finally, finally we see things as they are, without labels, without
 artificial separations: "The nameless tree with its forest of green..."

Seeing clearly, we see that everything flows into one another, and it is
 all filled with a living, glistening light -- even within ourselves.  Seeing
 this light, feeling it flow, feeling the heart overflow, we are filled with a
   quiet glee.  The very sense of who and what we really are is
 transformed. We feel alive for the first time... "all around, the light
 that sets the vital  body to humming"

That is when new possibilities emerge, the promises within ourselves,
within our interrelationship with reality are freed to find fulfillment.
For that to happen, we must first move beyond belief and free
 ourselves from the filter of the chattering mind.... "the world
held for us in promise/ until it is loosened from/our thinking."

What is Seeking? - Eric Baret

Seeking is an expression of truth, it's not a Way.
All the yoga practices are an expression of truth.
Yoga does not bring [us] to truth but truth expresses itself
through yoga.  Sadhana [spiritual practice] is an expression.
It is because you fore-feel Silence that your life becomes sadhana.
But to do sadhana, to reach Silence is the wrong way of thinking.
The very fact that you look for something is a proof you already feel it.
The very fact that you asked the question proves you know the answer
The answer is before the question.  You only ask a question because
you fore-feel the answer, or else you cannot ask the question.
So when you look for God, this looking comes from God directly.
It's [seeking] just an expression.  But the looking does not bring you to
 what you look for.  What you look for is behind you...
...you are not the finder of anything - the truth is in back of us,
not in front of us.  That's why it can never be reached, it can never
be understood...

Only listen towards Life itself...  Open yourself to what is really here...
Life is experienced in the body, viscerally, palpably, as vibration,
as energy...  The mind only functions with words...  But the thoughts
that come from the deep Silence, with words that come out from the
Depths, are also expressions of Life...
They come from the Silence to bring you back to Silence...

Open to experiencing without words...

Listen with your whole being...


Excerpted from a published interview with Eric Baret 2014
Eric Baret is a teacher of the Tantric Tradition

via: No Mind's Land

~

And so I dove Within,
Back... behind... before, ever deeper,
seeking the experience of Pure Being,
Before I knew anything of "myself."

Chuck Surface

Excerpt from: "Impossibly"

In The Garden of The Beloved

Facebook

Phantoms of Beliefs - Federico Moramarco

Have you considered the possibility
that everything you believe is wrong,
not merely off a bit, but totally wrong,
nothing like things as they really are?

If you've done this, you know how durably fragile
those phantoms we hold in our heads are,
those wisps of thought that people die and kill for,
betray lovers for, give up lifelong friendships for.

If you've not done this, you probably don't understand this poem,
or think it's not even a poem, but a bit of opaque nonsense,
occupying too much of your day's time,
so you probably should stop reading it here, now.

But if you've arrived at this line,
maybe, just maybe, you're open to that possibility,
the possibility of being absolutely completely wrong,
about everything that matters.

How different the world seems then:
everyone who was your enemy is your friend,
everything you hated, you now love,
and everything you love slips through your fingers like sand.

Federico Moramarco
"One Hundred and Eighty Degrees"

~

Photo - Light Image on Wall

Let the Mind Be the Mind - Danna Faulds

Let the mind be the mind...

Behind its restless activity,
just one layer deeper is stillness,
and beneath even that,
is an ocean of mystery and truth.

Swim in this eternal sea
until you know yourself
to be infinity,
and bring that knowing
back into your day.
Why struggle to be what
you already are?

Let the mind be the mind,
but don't bind yourself
to its limited reality.

Trust your experience of vastness.
Trust the truth that never
loses potency
or disappears
in fear.

Let the mind be the mind
and identify not with thought
but with Silence...


Danna Faulds
Yoga Practitioner and Poet
From: Limitless

~*~

Still your mind in me,
still yourself in me,
and without a doubt
you shall be united in me,
Lord of Love,
dwelling in the heart.

Bhagavad Gita

The Ineffable Breath...

Beyond the concepts of duality and n0n-duality
there is only The Breath of Sacred Silence...
Here is neither oneness or two-ness,
only The Rhythm of the
Ineffable Breath
of Silence
IN
which
Existence exists

In this space
everything falls away -
even our own breath –

 all  breathing falls into the
the Rhythm of the
Ineffable – breathing
the essential Life that

underlies everything.

The Ineffable Breath is always
 here - and "we" -
 are always being breathed
by the Ineffable Breath...

A mystery...

The inhale and exhale
of the Cosmos,
one Rhythm.
No longer aware of
a separate "me,"
only the Ineffable Silence
breathing…

The mind tries to keep the personal
sense of "me" alive through
thought patterns,
thought processes,
an automated mechanism
that just runs,
creating scenarios of I/me
BUT
There is only The Breath
of The Ineffable,

Breathing -
breathing Existence.

There is no sense of
union,
or dissolution,
or surrender
of a thing
called
"me"

One is simply - absorbed -
 subtly by/into The Ineffable.

A natural, organic absorption of the whole being

 taking place IN the Ineffable Breath -
 the ongoing stream of
 Pure Beingness –

Ecstasy…

The mystery of Existence
 all takes place
IN

The Ineffable Breath of Silence

Mystic Meandering
Meditative Writings
January 18, 2016

~*~

This poem triggered a mass exodus from my blog.
Maybe it is too "esoteric", too confusing, as a "Friend" suggested.
And yet, this was/is my experience of the Ineffable, the Mystery of
Existence, during times of meditative Silence -
 lost in the Ineffable Breath.
But how does one express the inexpressible in
 "understandable" ways?

One doesn't  - that is why it is "ineffable" - i.e. beyond expression,
unspeakable.  And yet I felt compelled to write,
 to share the experience
through the only vehicle I know - words -
in hopes that it would inspire...

Namaste

Beyond/Behind Mind - Nisargadatta & Wu Hsin

The mind must learn that beyond the moving mind there

is the background of awareness, which does not change.

The mind must come to know the true self and respect it and

cease covering it up, like the moon which obscures the sun

during solar eclipse.

What you need

is to be aware of being aware. Be aware deliberately and

consciously, broaden and deepen the field of awareness.

Look at it this way. The mind produces thoughts ceaselessly,

even when you do not look at them. When you know what is

going on in your mind, you call it consciousness. This is your

waking state—your consciousness shifts from sensation to

sensation, from perception to perception, from idea to
 idea, in endless succession. Then comes awareness,
the direct insight into the whole of consciousness,
 the totality of the mind. The mind is like a river,
 flowing ceaselessly in the bed of the body;

you identify yourself for a moment with some
particular ripple and call it: 'my thought’. All you are conscious of is your mind;

awareness is the cognizance of
 consciousness
 as a whole.

Our minds are just waves on the ocean of consciousness.
 As waves they come and go.
 As ocean they are infinite and eternal.

 Know yourself as the Ocean of Being,
the womb of all existence.
These are all metaphors of course;
 the reality is beyond description.

You can know it only by being it."

Nisargadatta 

Via: No Mind’s Land

Awareness is primordial;
it is the original state of
Pure Potentiality.
It is beginningless and endless…

Go behind all perceptions, conceptions
and ideas to that which is aware…

Free your self from preoccupation
with names and forms
and see what remains...

No Source of illumination is
required in order to see the sun.
One simply turns toward it and
rests in the attention of it.
How can you expect to
see the sun if your
attention is
fixated
elsewhere?

The peace you seek
is where you are.
Merely stop masking
it with thought.

Wu Hsin
Excerpts from

Behind the Mind:

The Short Discourses
of Wu Hsin

Come to the Window...

Come to the window tonight…

Become Friends with the Night
 and The Silence…
Let The Silence strengthen you.
Surrender the day into
the night;
into The Silence…

and

Find the Treasure of Silence
that lifts the veil…

Hear the OM of Silence
that pervades all sound.
Fathom the depth of OM
as it reverberates *through*
the Silence;
the pulse of the Universe;
the Rhythm of Life

sung ~ in silence – by The Silence

Drop into The Silence and rest…

The mind lets go
rocked by The Rhythm
of Silence
that cradles
its weariness…

Love begins to soften the eyes,
the brow, the tension;
Love of The Silence;
the Love that inhabits The Silence.

The day dissolves,
fixations loosen,
thoughts become insignificant.
There is only the Aliveness of the Night,
enfolded in Silence…

Everything is magical
when seen from the window
of Silence…

Mystic Meandering
August 10, 2015

~

Photo: a blue glass partly filled with water – back-lit.
Gives the illusion of a window
looking out on city lights – and -
there’s a reflection of a “person” (eyes)
looking through the window!
It’s magic!

The Limitation of Thoughts and Stories...

This video came to me through the Non-Duality Highlights Newsletter.

This guy is good and funny!
 He humorously, through mime,
 demonstrates the nature of thoughts and stories
that limit our ability to live fully.
He's original and unique...

And sometimes hearing Truth
in a different way
helps one to see it more clearly...

Pardon the promotional at the end of the video.
It’s worth it! 

Finding Peace in the Practical

I started de-cluttering, cleaning and organizing the house this week. This is going to take a while, with so much clutter accumulated – I’m ashamed to say. It’s a bit daunting when I *think* about what needs to be done here, because of what *hasn’t* been done here. But I am re-reading Byron Katie’s A Thousand Names for Joy before I go to bed each night, which is reminding me again of how my mind is creating my stress about it, because I am once again *believing* my thoughts. I have known this and forgotten this a thousand times. So now I’m aware when those dangerous thoughts arise that tend to send me into overwhelm, when I look at the basement, the garage, the garden, and my work space. I started in my work space Monday, then today for some reason I spontaneously moved to the garden, even though the work space is not finished – just allowing myself to spontaneously move to the next task at hand. And this afternoon went back to the work space again for a couple of hours.

I am finding a strange sense of peace in the mundane. Monday I was working at the mess at the desk when I suddenly awared that even as a myriad of thoughts passed through this mental mechanism, I was at peace and internally still. What a delight it was to realize the sound of internal quiet and peace. I was simultaneously aware of an internal flow and rhythm that I knew had been there all along, but had been crowded out by the mind. The mundane gives my mind something to focus on. Being busy keeps me from clinging to the thoughts and getting totally lost in the “what ifs.” I just keep going with what life requires at the moment, and in doing so I find a sense of peace. I’m being in the moment, wherever the moment takes me. And no matter where that is, it’s always this moment; living moment-to-moment, seamlessly. Sweet peace.

I had this selfish idea that I would get my chance to live a “contemplative life” while hubby was away – a self-centered craving to live monastically, meditating a lot, reading, maybe get back to something creative, doing contemplative photography, spending time in nature – you know, life as a continual retreat – trying to find internal peace. But life isn’t unfolding that way. There are a lot of very practical, mundane things that are required at the moment. And I am surprised to find peace in the practical. I’m enjoying the solitude and beginning to find my stride actually.

I’ve always been the kind of person that wants to get the practical out of the way so I can enjoy life. Eeeeuuu – even that didn’t sound good to me – but that seems to be the pattern. Just get-r-done so that you can do what you want to do – like having to eat your peas and carrots before you can have dessert. (Although I love peas and carrots :) But now I’m discovering that life is not a la carte. There’s no separating life into different courses, no dividing life into time for mundane, time for meditation, but living life as a continuous fluid movement – Liquid Life. Somehow being genuinely busy (not creating busyness just to be busy, or avoid anything) has allowed me to see the fluidity and seamlessness of the day, of the moment, of one moment sliding into another – not just getting through the main course so I can get to the sweet dessert at the end…

I’ve also tried living life the other way – more contemplatively – avoiding the practical as much as possible, retreating into my familiar forms of “spirituality”, which is why there is so much clutter and cleaning to tend to now. So now I’m learning to live life on Life’s terms - the ebb and flow of living - doing what’s required – contemplatively – in silence and solitude – allowing my mind to go where it wants to go, while awareing the delight of the deep Silence within, whether meditating or not. Finding that I don’t need to meditate to “find” IT – as IT is ever-present, I just need to turn within and experience it – feel it, sense it, aware it.

This morning I awoke “knowing” that it’s all OM (why that particular word I have no idea). OM is everything and everywhere. Life is OM – the Divine Energy. Everything is IT and IT is everything. IT just is.

This is going to be an interesting experience…

“I am the experience of the eternal…
When you don’t believe your thoughts…
there’s no separation.
You’re everything.
Only the unquestioned mind
would believe that you’re an I
living inside a body.
…there’s no I to identify as…
take it all in as Being…
…the universe is wherever you are,
and it’s everywhere…”

Byron Katie
A Thousand Names For Joy


~*~

Dreaming Mind

I had a dream on December 30th that seemed fairly significant, so I thought I’d share the gist of it, or is that the grist of it. :) I do not remember all the details, but the main “grist” of the dream seemed to be about locks. In particular they were doorknob locks (they all looked like round doorknobs). And I couldn’t lock them. I couldn’t lock the front door to the house, or the mail box (which was also a doorknob). The locks did not work. So I became preoccupied with the locks and spent a good part of the dream trying to *fix* the locks that would not lock, taking them apart and trying to figure them out – to no avail. There were intricate images of “mechanisms” that I would take apart and attempt to put back together again, but they wouldn’t go back together.

I see this as a good thing.

My “locks” are not working anymore, the mechanisms of the mind and self that have kept me (the Self) safe behind locked doors (figuratively) are not working anymore, leaving “me” open… And – I couldn’t put those mechanisms back together again. Hmmmm. Is this what Freedom feels like – open, vulnerable, exposed, falling apart, unable to put the self back together again, unable to lock everything up safely? Be careful what you ask for - Beloved takes no prisoners…

In the middle of trying to fix the mechanisms I woke up – from the night dream that is. As I woke up I realized it was just a dream that had occurred *in my mind.* The exact thoughts were: this is occurring *in my mind!* Like I was surprised, yet clearly knowing that it was all mind-made. I had essentially *thought* the dream. And yet, my *mind* did not want to wake up from the dream! It didn’t want to let go, even knowing that it was a dream. My mind wanted to go back into the dream – to finish the story – to try to fix the locks and the mechanisms – to find resolution. But “I” *didn’t* want to go back into the dream. “I” just wanted to wake up, but found it hard to do so because my mind wanted to hang on – to continue the dream.

The realization was that the *dream* was mind-made and I *knew* it. It was absolutely evident. But the pull to stay in the dream was greater than the desire to wake up. The only “resolution” was to *completely* wake up from the sleep state – where the dream occurs. But even then, after awakening, the dream hung on – in my mind; pulling at the mind to come back. The dream had momentum, the dream-thought continued, and my mind couldn’t let it go. It *wanted* to play out in my mind – even after awakening… I seemingly couldn’t disentangle from the dream state – mentally or emotionally. Sounds a lot like life - the waking dream...

So, I asked myself, is “awakening” really “enough”, is “awareness” enough to completely awaken from the waking dream? You know, the one we call life... Or do we remain in a dream of our minds, even after awakening, even with awareness? Apparently the thought-dream still continues, even after awakening. The mind keeps creating the dream- the waking dream of life. The key seems to be in the realization that it is only a dream and the impetus to wake up from the dream – to not *believe* that the dream is real…

Several days later I woke up with the thought that I had reached “the end” - "the end" of what? The image that opened to me was that of the mouse in the maze picture looking over the wall. The sense was that I had reached the “end” of the maze, that I couldn’t go any further, as there was nowhere else to go – so I *had* to look up over its walls. It wasn’t that I had found my way out of the maze on some blissful path – the yellow brick road - and landed in Oz, I just knew that I couldn’t continue in the maze – the maze of the mind, the maze of the dream. And the only resolution was to stop, to shift my perception from the maze – the dreaming mind - to a different paradigm; to look beyond the familiarity of the well-worn pathways of the mind and discover a different way of seeing and experiencing the world...

It occurred to me that we are free to participate in the maze of the mind or not… We are not locked in to the maze. Our sense of freedom depends on whether we are fixated on the dream, or able to see beyond the walls of the faulty mechanisms of the mind.

“If you want to see what’s behind the curtain of reality,
to take the red pill and discover what the matrix really is…
you have to be willing to give up everything.
The cost is literally all of “you”
– your identity, your addictions, your life-long programming…”
[the maze].
Author unknown.

~*~

Keep on knocking
‘til the joy inside
opens a window
look to see who’s there

Inner wakefulness

This place is a dream
only a sleeper considers it real
then death comes like dawn
and you wake up laughing
at what you thought was your grief
A man goes to sleep in the town
where he has always lived
and he dreams he’s living in another town
in the dream he doesn’t remember
the town he’s sleeping in his bed in
he believes the reality of the dream town
the world is that kind of sleep
Humankind is being led along an evolving course,
through this migration of intelligences
and though we seem to be sleeping
there is an inner wakefulness,
that directs the dream
and that will eventually startle us back
to the truth of who we are

Rumi

~*~

Photo Image – CD cover for “Sonicaid”
Music to promote sleep.
Copyright - Avalon (SOCAN.)
www.avalonmusic.com
Imagery: Solid Imagery Arts, LLC

Noticing Thoughts Window

Every night at the Window is a different noticing it seems. Lately I’ve been noticing the movement of thoughts.

Initially when I sit I usually notice a tangible sense of Calm and Peace, as was the case a couple of nights ago. Then I noticed that “I” was being distracted by thought, accompanied by a subtle visceral sense of contraction in different places in the body – fear thoughts here, anger thoughts there. When I became aware of this, I would bring my awareness back to the space of Calm and Peace and then once again notice that over a matter of a few minutes thought had somehow pulled my awareness away again. This happened several times in a slow rhythm of awareness from one to the other. This was even noticed in the movement of the eyes as I sat with eyes closed. When I was *resting* in Calm and Peace the gaze was inward. Sometimes it was towards the window to my left, as if listening to the Calm at the window – “out there” – external. When I became aware of thought, it was noticed that my eyes were directed upward and to the right – as if thinking was “up there” somewhere.

A thought became a chain of thoughts, which then became a “swarm” of thoughts (this word borrowed from a friend, but is also what I experienced.) And it was noticed that I had no control over these thoughts. I could not stop thinking, as some teachings suggest. This is what the mind does. It thinks. All I could do was bring my awareness back to the Space of inner Peace and Calm.

It was experienced that there is a pull of Consciousness, the *Space* of Calm and Peace, and a pull of thought in a subtle rhythmic movement as awareness seemingly shifts between the two. Attention gets focused on thought, then, with awareness of that, there is a shift in awareness to Calm and Peace. But I had to consciously keep bringing the focus to the space of Calm – and not get entangled with thought.

In this *natural* movement it was realized once again that thought cannot be stopped, or controlled. I had to consciously choose not to follow thoughts out into infinity, to not indulge in speculation about the future, or resentment and regret about the past. I had to continually bring awareness to the inner space of Calm – the only Now there is. Some nights were more successful than others.

The “trick”, if there is one, seems to be to learn to rest the awareness in the internal Space of Calm (or however you want to call it). Just be there - *aware* of the movement of thoughts and feelings; aware of what is awareing this; allowing - not trying to wrestle oneself from the mind, but gently bringing awareness to this aware space of Eternal Rest again and again - entraining with this Still Space that is only Now…

~*~

“By ‘Here’ I don’t mean this present space.
Here is somewhere within where mind cannot reach.
Presence is always here and you are always That.
Here is not the opposite of there.
This here is nowhere.
It is your Heart.
…it all comes back to the Heart.”
Papaji

The Angst of "not good enough..."

Yesterday I woke up with a nagging sense that I was “not good enough.” It was triggered by the *thought* that I may have offended someone. This is an interesting neurotic tendency that I have - *assuming* that what I say may offend, rather than being somehow beneficial - creating yet another story to wrap my mind around. I often wake up in “storyland” before my day even gets started and then start obsessing endlessly, and spend the day trying *not* to obsess. I know some of you can relate to this as well. Crazy creatures we are!

While sitting out under what I now call my “Buddha Tree” :) - the Maple in my backyard – I felt a deep angst, unsettledness, and anxiety about this situation. I felt a core sense of inadequacy, of being flawed, “wrong”, of not being “okay.” And I could see what the spiritual teachers say, that this *feeling* is the root of my suffering, my angst: the sense that who I AM is not “good enough” – although at the level of Pure Being I *know* that is not true.

I have been making my way *slowly* through Tara Brach’s book “Radical Acceptance” - slowly because it is touching a deep nerve. She mentions this core sense of inadequacy which she calls “the trance of unworthiness,” the trance of the separate self, which she says is the “human condition.” Through her descriptions I am experiencing what she means by this and I am beginning to face this deeper pain within… Oh boy! How could I have known that my resolve to sit with Nature meant I would face my deepest neuroses and insecurities! I thought connecting with Nature would bring bliss and delight! :)

So now under the tree I am beginning to face my inner dragons – the ones I’ve been avoiding, the ones who wreak havoc in the Stillness. They want to be released from the dungeons. But if I release them, I rationalize, they might devour “me.” But I think that’s the point – to be devoured until there is nothing left but The Self – The True Nature. Yet, I’d prefer not to go through the fiery furnace, thank you very much! I’d rather believe my delusions of peace and bliss under the “Buddha Tree.” But it seems in agreeing to see what I need to see and hearing what I need to hear I have opened the door to the furnace… And I think “I” am about to be burned: the me-mind with its neurotic patterns, that is. Which is supposed to be a good thing, but I didn’t realize how much pain was actually involved.

This “basic” sense of inadequacy causes my mind to go off on neurotic journeys and tightens my stomach. I feel the urge to act, to free the angst, to find out *if* I have offended, to find out if I’m “okay.” It takes all I have to just sit – to go deeper, to touch my Essential Nature, beyond the mind; to *not* act on my neurotic tendencies and mind-created scenarios; to *not* feel “in control”; to *not* seek validation for this needy persona-self; to just sit and *be*… It was exhausting actually.

This *deep* sense of “wrongness” inside actually surprises me. I thought I had moved past it years ago. It appears it has remained hidden. This, it seems, is the “anxious quiver of being” that Ezra Bayda and Tara Brach and others talk about: This basic sense of flaw, fault, inadequacy, incompetency that underlies most of our actions, needs, wants and sufferings – internal and otherwise. And how insidious this is – this feeling that keeps everything unsettled and becomes the reference point for living!

With the recognition of this core feeling, a deep sense of compassion welled up inside – which also surprised me. And I realized that this compassion was not just for my own experience but for everyone who experiences the same.

And yet – despite this realization, and feeling this momentary deep compassion for the neuroses of mankind, the collective deep pain of inadequacy, I am still not able to completely face it, to see what’s there. So like a turtle I began to recede and hide behind the safety of the persona. In a sense hiding behind the inadequacy, the *belief* in not being good enough; hiding in the anxious quiver of the mind. How very strange…

It’s like we *use* our neuroses to hide, to cover over who we really are. We meet each other on the level of inadequacy, suffering and pain, pretending we don’t know who we really are, afraid to speak from that sense of knowing our True Nature.

As I sat, I asked: what is the “medicine” that is needed here, but received no answer. It was as if I was asking too soon, trying to find the “fix” to avoid the pain, trying to rush a release. It seems I just need to *be* with it, to wait until it’s fully met. So for now the “medicine” is the stillness of simple awareness.

~*~

Grocery Store Wisdom - Obstacles

Welcome to my third “grocery store wisdom” blog post – where I get to notice Life living Itself! I am actually looking forward to going grocery shopping every week now, as it gives me the opportunity to just be aware, to just notice… And I am discovering that something as mundane as grocery shopping can be quite enlightening!

Today’s noticing seemed to be about obstacles. It’s a theme that I’ve been noticing for a week now.

Almost immediately upon entering the grocery store I noticed obstacles: people blocking isles with their carriages, shelf stockers with their carts, little yellow the “floor is wet” signs in the middle of the isles in the produce section where water covered a portion of the tile floor, a man on a very tall ladder in the middle of one isle in the frozen foods section, and longer lines at the check out stands. I noticed irritation arising as well, and the sudden insight – ah - something needs to be seen here. So I jotted down the word “obstacle” on my grocery list; not as something to buy, but something noticed, like finding clues to a mystery.

As I continued through the store, it seemed like everywhere I turned there was an obstacle requiring me to maneuver a different way, to stop and navigate differently in order to get around the obstacle, which I found annoying, because, after all, the obstacle shouldn’t have been there – or so I *thought.* And that, I discovered, was the source of the irritation – the *thought* that the obstacle shouldn’t have been there, to divert me from *my* path – to get what *I* needed. Sounds arrogant I know… another noticing…. Hmmm. I added “irritation” and “thought” to my grocery list of clues.

It was as if Life was trying to get my attention by having me experience this – these “obstacles” that I interpreted to be “in the way.” It was my *perception* that saw them as obstacles – the perception of the “me” – the mind. But they were just *things* on my “path.” I believe there’s a Zen saying that goes something like, just keep stepping back until you step back into the Looking itself. When I step back from this mind perception I can see that Beingness/Awareness/Presence (however you refer to “It”) doesn’t *perceive* things as “obstacles”, but like a river flows around them, navigates around them. *Nothing* is perceived as an obstacle, or a problem from the standpoint of Pure Seeing. It’s just *seen.* It’s only the mind that interprets and perceives a problem that needs to be dealt with. Aha – like a specialty chef combing the shelves for particular ingredients, the clues just came popping out at me. And so I added “perception of a problem” to my list. By this time my curiosity was really peeked and I was actually looking for clues – spy glass and all! :)

What I also began to see in this clue shopping – ah-ur – grocery shopping, is that life is not always a straight path, but it winds and turns around so-called obstacles giving us a different view of things. By having to go around obstacles it slows us down, makes us *aware*, to *see* rather than being on automatic mode all the time, *expecting* life to go the way we want it to. Instead, I had to slow down, watch where I was going and maneuver *through* the obstacle, or even find another way. And in that seeing was the final clue – “awareness.”

In the awareness of it I noticed how often I let the so-called obstacles in every day life determine how I experience life, allowing the external life circumstances, and my thoughts about them, determine my perception of the way things are, instead of experiencing life from Presence, from Awareness – what I call “the Stillness.”

And so I came away with my “grocery list” of clues to ponder: obstacles, thought, irritation, perception, awareness, Stillness. And from the clues the wisdom emerged: Obstacles are just thought perceptions in the mind that create irritation. They dissolve when seen from Awareness – from just Seeing…

I want to leave you this inspiring quote:

“There is a new way of operating… It is more like navigating a flow. You feel where events are moving, and you feel the right thing to do. It’s like a river that knows which way to turn around a rock… It’s an intuitive and innate sense of knowing. This flow is always available to us, underneath the turmoil of thought and emotions… There is indeed a flow. There is a simple movement of life.” Adyashanti

Heart Smiles – MeANderi
www.ASerenitySanctuary.com