Love

If I could only tell you

How things really are,

Oh,

How you would laugh....

Joke

I don't have anything to say;

Nothing to sell,

No point to make,

No argument to defend.

My life's a mess,

I'm sliding into debts,

And I need a new pair of shoes.

I take public transport.

Don't ask me why all of this

Makes me laugh.

Only awareness arising as this, this, this....

Unlearning

This is not about naming.

This is about being nameless,

and nameless being.

Reality

The answer you’re looking for is not contained within the Mind. It is not contained in Knowledge. Mind cannot understand reality for the Mind can only produce concepts and ideas which it then takes as an authentic self-existing reality.

It then devises ways to go and 'attain' those ideas, conveniently ignoring the fact that it is only ever searching for its own creations and therefore suffering when it can't seem to find them.

The Mind has nothing to do with true understanding because true understanding is and always has been implicit and obvious as experience. Not in labelling experience, nor in a particular experience, but experience per se.

Reality is always present but can appear to be covered by mental concepts and labels such as ‘Me’, ‘You’ ‘This’ and ‘That’. Through a sincere investigation of these labels it can be seen that they are just concepts produced by the Mind, and do not relate to any concrete realities.

Once these inadequate ideas have been seen through, then reality shines forth, luminous, obvious and free. Reality is not, and has never been, anything other than what you truly are but without interpretation through mental concepts.

Reality is only experience – just as it is - arising and passing away just as it has always done. The view from your window is reality. The toast you had for breakfast is reality. The only difference is that with the realisation that the concept of a separate individual is invalid, then experience no longer refers back to anyone. Then reality simply is, happening to no-one, spontaneous and free.

There is only reality - despite all appearances - and reality is unity.

www.beingordinary.org

Latest podcast from Being ordinary, this time we tackle the big E - Enlightenment...

http://www.beingordinary.org/2010/03/5-the-taboo-of-enlightenment/

Understanding must also fall away

The clarity of seeing ‘this’ can often become clouded again by the very attempt to ‘understand’ it. Life is as it is, obvious, silent and ordinary, yet the mind begins to label this clarity with more ‘accurate’ concepts. It picks up some ‘clearer labels’, some ‘non-dual’ jargon and then begins to construct what it believes is an ‘understanding’.

“Great”, thinks the mind, “Now I can express this, write about it, talk clearly about it. Now I know what I’m talking about, I know what it means, I’m certain, I have authority’.

All of which is just mind trying to get its job back. Poor mind; it tries its best to assert dominance and authority by claiming to ‘understand’ life, but this is something it can never do. Concepts cannot touch life and no amount of ‘non-dual pointers’ can immerse you in your own clarity.

Non-dualism is. It cannot be expressed for the moment it is spoken of it is dualistic. Any attempt to prove you have an ‘understanding’ or some kind of experiential ‘authority’ misses the point and suddenly you find yourself having to define and defend labels which in reality have absolutely nothing to do with ‘this’.

We abandon our unbounded freedom and cling to a mere concept.

‘This’ is so bright that it outshines any idea. It dissolves all names and forms. It destroys the imagined boundary of separation. Give up trying to understand it. There is no authority here, no certainty.

No-one to say “I know”.

There is no structure - only free-fall.

Seeing Oneness

Oneness is clear and obvious not as phenomena but as the spontaneous knowing in which all phenomena arise.

Seeing the obvious - being the obvious

The realisation of the ordinariness of impersonal spontaneous awareness eliminates the notion of a separate, self-motivating individual who is seeking something called 'Enlightenment'.

Then it is seen that this so-called 'me' was only ever an idea arising within the impersonal spontaneous awareness which was - and always is - present.

See your obviousness.

It's the one thing that's truly yours.

You can’t get Enlightened twice

Many people seem to have an Enlightening experience, then subsequently loose it. There is then the sheer frustration of trying to get it back.

But once it is seen that what you essentially are is the spontaneous ‘knowing’ or ‘awareness’ in which all perception takes place, there is no possibility of forgetting it or loosing it. This is because, once seen, it is obvious that any further thought, doubt, emotion or action, only ever appears within ‘knowing’ or ‘awareness’. No amount of mental noise nor the opinions of others can then dissuade you from the obvious fact that any appearance, any phenomena, perception or experience can only ever arise within ‘knowing’ or ‘awareness’.

When you realise that you are essentially that knowing awareness then it is impossible to loose yourself, for you see that you always were and always will be everything and nothing.

You cannot become what you already are

We often hear that we must be more mindful, more aware, more conscious. We strive to attain perfect mindfulness, perfect awareness, perfect consciousness, as if that were something apart from ourselves that we have to create or manufacture in order to be 'better' or 'enlightened'.

Instead of spending time and effort (and ultimately frustration) in attempting to 'create' awareness, just see that all your actions and thoughts already take place in awareness naturally and spontaneously. Even your effort to produce awareness happen in awareness.

The fact that you know you are - that you are conscious - is the clue.

Awareness or knowing happens spontaneously, it is not produced by an individual. In fact the sense of a separate self arises within that aware space as a known thing, for no-one can deny they lack self-consciousness. Your sense of self is therefore only an uninvestigated assumption a which arises and falls within the net of awareness.

Awareness or knowingness does not rise and fall. It is the condition for all further conditions, the paper upon which the words are written, the very material of which your thoughts and actions are made and known. It is an infinite net from which you cannot escape, it is not something that a so called 'individual' can produce.

So, does an ocean need to be more like water? A flower more like a flower? Does awareness need to be more like awareness?

See what you are and be what you are.

There is only recognition

What we call the world is made up of a lifetime of experiences. All experiences are made up from perceptions. All perceptions have the inherent quality of knowing or awareness (e.g. We know that we perceive).

To reverse this order:

What we call perceptions have the inherent quality of knowing or awareness (e.g. We know that we perceive). Perceptions make up our experiences. What we call the world is made up from a lifetime of experiences.

Therefore to recognise that the world is ultimately only awareness and that awareness is none other than the world is to see the non-duality of reality.

Ultimately there is only recognition.

To recognise this is freedom.

Freedom has no name.

No distinctions, only being.

Any distinction between experiences is only ever the minds interpretation, a learnt label added after the fact. So whether your experience may be the product of drugs, dreams, or dzogchen, the raw immediate fact of the experience is always its being (the fact that it is). You could say that being is appearing as a hallucination, nightmare or deep meditation just as the ocean becomes tidal waves, cross-currents, or flat calms.

The 'out there' is also only a label for what is; a learnt distinction. There is only this raw nameless perception which is simultaneously a know perception. Perception has the character of knowing or awareness. We may say 'I perceive' but really, there is only perception which is itself aware - an action which has no actor (try looking for the so-called person who claims awareness).

If we really see the ordinary directly - as it is - we will discover that actually it belongs to no-body and that therefore no-one can become attached to it. This world of ours is a floating one, without an anchor or base. Just awareness or being bubbling up into apparent forms before fading back into nothing.

But this is of course not something that the mind is interested in hearing.

February evening rain,
Homes light up
Like lanterns.