Without thinking about it, can we stop or prevent what is happening right now in this moment? The room I am in, the music playing, the slight chill in the air, the sounds of the keyboard, my full stomach, the sensation of sitting...can I stop these from happening without thinking about it?
Well let's see.
I stop thinking and see, quite plainly, very obviously, that these things are just happening. They are facts. The room is here, the music plays, sensations happen. It's all just happening. The fact of it is effortless. It is very fresh and beautiful actually. Very simple.
Yet the mind does not have time for this silent simplicity and quickly buries the fact of this effortlessness with thoughts and opinions, imaginations or memories. The mind ignores the simple fact that everything is just here, easily, without requiring thinking to interpret any of it.
Right now, without thinking about it the sun is quickly setting, clouds move across the sky, I feel a sensation of tiredness in my eyes, I hear the dull and distant movements of my house-mates. This all just happens, regardless of whether or not I'm thinking about it.
Without thinking about it things are just as they are. Ordinary and simple. These are our only facts, the Mind is only ever interpretation and opinion.
Can you see this fact without the Mind's distraction?
Try it. Suspend thought. Just see. See the ordinary as it is, without names and labels. See its there-ness, its being, its fact.
See the quiet stillness of things.
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Friday, 29 January 2010
Sign above the entrance to the Universe:
WELCOME TO EXISTENCE:
- Everything is Awareness -
(although appearances may vary)
- Everything is Awareness -
(although appearances may vary)
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
Open Essay II
Without jumping into analysis and philosophical systems, let us relax the mind and look directly at experience as it arises, raw and naked. Let us drop names and ideas, comparisons and memories, likes and dislikes, and just see. Let us be like scientists without even the idea of science to colour our perception, or like children who have not learnt all the names of things and are still open to wonder.
Let us ask ourselves a question:
What is the one thing in this moment can you be certain about? What is there in this moment that is real and actual beyond all doubt or criticism? Is there anything available now which presents itself beyond all supposition or belief?
If we are totally honest and clear with ourselves we may see that the only certainty we have in this moment is that - in the most simple terms - ‘something’ is happening.
It might be a sensation like hunger or a tingling in the face or fingers, the sunlight coming through the window, a birds shriek, an itch, numbness or warmth, but before we even begin naming and describing, the only fact we can be certain about is that ‘something’ is happening.
Now all you have to do is discover just what that ‘something’ is.
Let us ask ourselves a question:
What is the one thing in this moment can you be certain about? What is there in this moment that is real and actual beyond all doubt or criticism? Is there anything available now which presents itself beyond all supposition or belief?
If we are totally honest and clear with ourselves we may see that the only certainty we have in this moment is that - in the most simple terms - ‘something’ is happening.
It might be a sensation like hunger or a tingling in the face or fingers, the sunlight coming through the window, a birds shriek, an itch, numbness or warmth, but before we even begin naming and describing, the only fact we can be certain about is that ‘something’ is happening.
Now all you have to do is discover just what that ‘something’ is.
Sunday, 24 January 2010
The Value of Dust
In this space
even the loudest thoughts are mute,
The most solid sensations
appear as mists.
All of this dust,
is really
Gold.
even the loudest thoughts are mute,
The most solid sensations
appear as mists.
All of this dust,
is really
Gold.
Friday, 15 January 2010
Ceci n'est pas une pipe
The raw and direct experience of whatever you are doing right now transcends all and any concepts which might overlay it. Life doesn’t require concepts to be.
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Open Essay I
The world as we think of it is only a web of concepts and associations which exist as mental translations of sensation and raw experience. In this sense we could say that there are two worlds, the one which exists in our heads and which we imagine to be real, and the one which exists simply as it is without need of concept or translation.
Without the habitual translation of experience into thoughts, memories, comparisons etc, there is no 'World' and without a world there is no 'Me' and no 'You'. There is just what is. It has not changed, but it is not weighed down and buried beneath a life-time of labels and attachments. Without belief in labels, things come to life as life itself.
The borders, boundaries and limitations such as 'out there is the world' or 'this is a bad feeling' or 'this is a chair' or 'I am inside this body' all fall away when the inadequacy of labels are seen through. The imagined separation between ourselves and the universe then ceases to be, and the mind-altering revelation occurs that up until now we have been experiencing life through the narrow and energy sapping lens of mental concepts. Most of our experience is channelled into thought and the energy of these thoughts have distracted us from the raw simplicity of life which - if we look at it directly - we find as spontaneous, free, formless, intangible and boundless.
Indeed once this is seen, the world in which we live seems dream-like, incredibly fragile and transient, yet heart-wrenchingly beautiful and profound. We may still refer to ourselves as an individual, but the belief in these concepts as realities falls away. Language and concepts are for our convenience only, not for leading us to reality. All language is therefore poetry and poetry cannot tell us the truth, but only, beautifully, point towards it.
Thinking continues but its authority has been exposed and it's hypnotic power is weakened. We may use it to read a map or talk about our day, but we will not use it existentially to search for reality, God or Truth. Even if we do it will be with a clearly marked caveat: Life itself does not require a name.
Ultimately, even the thinking mind and belief in concepts and labels are but facets of the intelligence of life. They are not to be forcibly removed or denied or even surrendered to, because when seen clearly we find that the some-one who would repress, silence or deny the mind is itself just another thought. We do not have to get rid of a 'Me' or stop our thoughts. We just need to look directly at our experience to see that there never was a 'Me' and never will be.
The 'Me' is the ultimate label, the Queen of concepts, and yet it has no root, no core, no connection to reality. The 'Me' is but a dream, a thought which comes and goes. Once this keystone concept is seen as essentially invalid all thoughts pertaining to this imagined entity weaken, for we do not hold conversations with ghosts and we do not continue to wait up for Santa Claus after we discover him to be unreal.
All that remains is this. But even this has a variety of concepts and labels associated with it such as flow, being, suchness, life, consciousness or awareness. These may give a flavour of reality, but are really only more refined pointers. This cannot be named and never has been, it is the slayer of words, the destroyer of unreality. Our entire lives we have been one-ness, yet our thoughts convinced us that we were separate. See these thoughts as the dreams they are, look at what is happening right now and try to see if there is any separation between you and the world, between your thoughts and the awareness of them.
There are no gaps in reality and these very words - although but a collection of dreams - are in fact none other than yourself; One-ness staring back at one-ness.
Without the habitual translation of experience into thoughts, memories, comparisons etc, there is no 'World' and without a world there is no 'Me' and no 'You'. There is just what is. It has not changed, but it is not weighed down and buried beneath a life-time of labels and attachments. Without belief in labels, things come to life as life itself.
The borders, boundaries and limitations such as 'out there is the world' or 'this is a bad feeling' or 'this is a chair' or 'I am inside this body' all fall away when the inadequacy of labels are seen through. The imagined separation between ourselves and the universe then ceases to be, and the mind-altering revelation occurs that up until now we have been experiencing life through the narrow and energy sapping lens of mental concepts. Most of our experience is channelled into thought and the energy of these thoughts have distracted us from the raw simplicity of life which - if we look at it directly - we find as spontaneous, free, formless, intangible and boundless.
Indeed once this is seen, the world in which we live seems dream-like, incredibly fragile and transient, yet heart-wrenchingly beautiful and profound. We may still refer to ourselves as an individual, but the belief in these concepts as realities falls away. Language and concepts are for our convenience only, not for leading us to reality. All language is therefore poetry and poetry cannot tell us the truth, but only, beautifully, point towards it.
Thinking continues but its authority has been exposed and it's hypnotic power is weakened. We may use it to read a map or talk about our day, but we will not use it existentially to search for reality, God or Truth. Even if we do it will be with a clearly marked caveat: Life itself does not require a name.
Ultimately, even the thinking mind and belief in concepts and labels are but facets of the intelligence of life. They are not to be forcibly removed or denied or even surrendered to, because when seen clearly we find that the some-one who would repress, silence or deny the mind is itself just another thought. We do not have to get rid of a 'Me' or stop our thoughts. We just need to look directly at our experience to see that there never was a 'Me' and never will be.
The 'Me' is the ultimate label, the Queen of concepts, and yet it has no root, no core, no connection to reality. The 'Me' is but a dream, a thought which comes and goes. Once this keystone concept is seen as essentially invalid all thoughts pertaining to this imagined entity weaken, for we do not hold conversations with ghosts and we do not continue to wait up for Santa Claus after we discover him to be unreal.
All that remains is this. But even this has a variety of concepts and labels associated with it such as flow, being, suchness, life, consciousness or awareness. These may give a flavour of reality, but are really only more refined pointers. This cannot be named and never has been, it is the slayer of words, the destroyer of unreality. Our entire lives we have been one-ness, yet our thoughts convinced us that we were separate. See these thoughts as the dreams they are, look at what is happening right now and try to see if there is any separation between you and the world, between your thoughts and the awareness of them.
There are no gaps in reality and these very words - although but a collection of dreams - are in fact none other than yourself; One-ness staring back at one-ness.
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Nameless Now.
What name can smother the nameless?
All mental efforts evaporate into the air
Like morning mist in the face of the dazzling
Sunshine of simplicity.
All mental efforts evaporate into the air
Like morning mist in the face of the dazzling
Sunshine of simplicity.
Life
Most of what we call 'Life' is only an opinion or an interpretation, it is conceptual or various flavours of mental noise. For many of us raw immediate experience is habitually channelled into mental labels, thinking, memory and analysis. Few are those who are content with the simple peace of Life as it presents itself.
Friday, 1 January 2010
ephemeral nonsense
All of these sensations,
Perceptions, feelings, thoughts,
What dreams!
What wordless miasmas!
The wind loves to play
at catching itself.
Perceptions, feelings, thoughts,
What dreams!
What wordless miasmas!
The wind loves to play
at catching itself.
Be a non-stick pan
Not oil
Nor butter or lard,
Not tofu, sausages or noodles,
Not eggs or fish or bacon.
Nothing sweet or savoury,
Sour or bitter:
It is best to be
a non-stick pan.
Nor butter or lard,
Not tofu, sausages or noodles,
Not eggs or fish or bacon.
Nothing sweet or savoury,
Sour or bitter:
It is best to be
a non-stick pan.
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