Reality Beyond Words

     From before recorded history, mystics in the form of shamans, medicine women & men, sages, saints, alchemists, various varieties of artists, and most recently quantum physicists have been pointing out how reality is INFINITELY greater and FAR more complex than we can describe, or even imagine. 
    Our mind filters out (blocks from our consciousness) most of our perceptions, to prevent us from being overwhelmed, thus allowing us to focus only on what's necessary for survival. So our mind is both an information 'receiver', and a 'reducing valve.' 

    Our society's mindset has become far too narrowly, self-destructively, self-centered - using Iain McGilchrist's profound understanding, 'Left-hemisphere dominant': http://www.johnlovas.com/2024/03/knockin-on-heavens-door.html Our current mindset is 'Unwise' both in terms of secular academic wisdom research, http://www.johnlovas.com/2021/06/loads-of-information-some-knowledge.html as well as humanity's timeless wisdom traditions. 
    Wisdom traditions can be compared to politics. Many politicians put self-interest & their own party's success, ahead of the welfare of their country. Such "partisanship" - a form of individual & group narcissism - is tearing the US apart. However, some politicians are decent mature human beings, who take their job seriously, primarily serve their country's, & ideally the world's, best interests. Wisdom traditions, taken seriously, guide practitioners toward ethical behavior, unconditional love of self & others, and the capacity to gracefully navigate life's most difficult existential challenges. Like politics, religions (both often working as one) have a shameful history of incompetence, corruption & criminal behavior. Nevertheless, both politics and wisdom traditions - when taken seriously - are vital & irreplaceable for a deeply meaningful life.
    Clearly both individuals and society have a duty to deeply care for, to wisely nurture, themselves & each other. 

    It takes a certain type of intelligence to quickly become a billionaire, to become a populist dictator, to become a wealthy slum lord, or 'succeed' in any other criminal activity. But to mature into a peaceful, generous, collaborative, loving, nurturing human being requires a rare & infinitely more precious quality: wisdom. 
    Our society has almost completely forgotten about the value, or even the meaning of wisdom. As a result, we're democratically electing an increasing number of world leaders who have all the attributes & more of Batman-movie villains, but none of the attributes of wise leaders such as: Mahatma Gandhi, Václav Havel, Nelson Madela, Jacinda Ardern, etc.

    We MUST re-educate ourselves about, and individually & collectively embody wisdom in order to heal our broken Earth so that our children, grandchildren and as yet unborn future generations can survive & even thrive. 

    A senior nondual teacher - Tony Parsons - points us towards wisdom which is nondual. Our dualistic minds find nonduality paradoxical at best. The most highly spiritually-evolved mystics & saints of all our wisdom traditions have always lived & pointed toward nondual wisdom, BUT even their own 'conservative' religious institutions have been systematically persecuting & murdering them out of fear, ignorance & jealousy. 
    HOWEVER, we're NOW at the tipping point where the hubris of our common dualistic 'cleverness' MUST evolve, or more accurately, shift into nondual wisdom before humanity extinguishes itself. 
    This provides some sense of the direction in which Parsons is pointing: 

    “It seems that in the boundless energy that is oneness there can also arise a contracted energy which brings about apparent self-awareness. A powerful and convincing sense of self-identity seems to arise together with a belief in personal free will and choice in what is experienced as a real life story. All of these personal experiences can only apparently arise in what seems to be a very real but dualistic reality in which everything appears to be separate. This sense of separation can bring with it a sense of loss and a need to seek guidance, an understanding or a path or process that can promise fulfillment. There are attempts to seek unity which are totally futile because the separate seeker is apparently the very dualism from which it is trying to escape.” 
    Tony Parsons https://www.theopensecret.com/ 

 

      “What goes on in these (Tony Parsons) meetings is not so much to do with conceptual clarity. It is to do with an energetic shift, it’s to do with energy. Basically, the energy of being separate is contraction. At a very early age there’s a contraction of energy into a sense of a center, ‘I’m “me.” Oh! Now I’m “me”!’ Basically, the apparent separate individual in the dream is in the contracted state – ‘I’m in here, this is my boundary, and everything else is out there.’ And it can seem threatening, or not. 
    So what happens in these meetings and, interestingly, directly after them, is that somewhere that contraction meets boundlessness. That boundlessness isn’t anyone’s; it’s just boundlessness. The speaker is speaking to itself. The speaker is meeting nothing and speaking to nothing. So conceptually, there can be a clarity about that. The most powerful thing in these meetings is that the contracted state can open out into boundlessness. It’s an energetic shift.” 
    John David interviews Tony Parsons in 2007 • Wisdom of the European Masters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvokZJjemfg

 
    “What we’re talking about here is just an energy that can’t be known. The energy of empty fullness. It’s a mystery. It can’t be understood. I use the word energy as everything. All there is, is energy. All there is, is everything and anything. For me energy is a good word, it’s like aliveness. All there is, is aliveness or energy. This is it. 
    This is energy in the form of a room, people, breathing, thinking, feeling, sitting on a chair. It’s simply energy happening. And that energy is absolutely boundless. Nothing influences it. It’s completely free and wild. It appears as everything and nothing. It’s a mystery. 
    And because it’s free, it has no purpose or meaning. There’s no meaning to any of this. This aliveness is utterly, wonderfully, meaningless. 
    But because it’s free energy, it can also be limited. And so in its apparent limited form, nothing is real, everything is only an appearance. In its apparent limited form, what arises in the human being is a self-awareness. At a very early age after birth, suddenly, there’s a sense of self-awareness – a sense of ‘me,’ ‘I am real.’ And that child goes into the world full of other apparent individuals, who also feel that they are real, so it lives, in what I call, ‘a dream.’ It lives in a dream of you could say, of ‘dualism.’ He’s in the dream of being separate. I am a separate individual. The world is something that’s happening to me. So that sense of awareness keeps me separate from everything. That wouldn’t necessarily be recognized by most people, but that’s actually what happens. That’s the dream state of individualism. Most people in the world you could say feel as if that is absolutely real, being a separate individual in the world. 
    What’s being suggested here is that that whole idea, that whole sense of being separate, and being individual, and having free will and choice, and living in a story that seems to be real - all of that is a complete & utter dreamt illusion. Most people think it’s real, but what’s being suggested here is that it’s an illusion, and there’s something else, another possibility which completely explodes the whole idea of individuality or separation.

    So we could talk about how the individual seems to take form, what it’s like, all the belief systems it collects around itself to believe in its life and its story. We could talk about that. And it’s possible, that in just talking about it conceptually, and hearing a few suggestions that come from somewhere else, it’s possible that that whole belief system of separation, that whole belief system of individuality of awareness, can unravel. It may not. 
    But the other thing that can happen is, where there’s an openness to something that’s beyond the sense of self, when there’s an openness to another possibility – a terrible possibility, but a possibility nonetheless. There could be something energetic that’s very freeing and boundless about that energy, and then, the contracted energy of being the self can melt or fall back into that whole, because the contracted energy is also oneness. Contracted energy is also the boundless in the contracted form. 
    There is nothing that is right or wrong. There’s nothing above or below. There’s nothing that’s here or there. There just is what is and is not. That’s the mystery we’re talking about. And again, it cannot be known. So what you will go away from here is with absolutely nothing at all. There’s nothing to learn or understand about what we’re discussing here. But something could possibly apparently collapse – but only apparently collapse. It’s the restricted feeling of being an individual in the world that’s separate.

    This is not a teaching. There’s nothing to learn. It’s just a communication. It’s an illumination of what seems to be the human condition, and a suggestion that something else that’s completely beyond that but somehow by confronting can also unveil liberation. But you can’t do anything about it. The you that thinks you can do something about it simply can pour water and benefits. Yeah, it’s this. It’s this. It’s nowhere else, it’s this.

    Q: When the contracted sense of separate self falls away, are there any physical manifestations that you or others can notice?

    Tony Parsons (TP): No, not necessarily. The physical thing that can happen when the whole contracted sense of being a ‘me’ collapses – but only apparently collapses – the body relaxes, because all the time in there’s a sense of me, and the me is trying to maintain its image in the world, who’s trying to play the game of the world, so there’s a lot of tension and fear involved in that, which suddenly falls away, so there’s a relaxation. Noticing that there’s a lot more energy, just available, not to anyone, because it takes a lot of energy to be a ‘me’ in the world, to try to make that illusion work.

    Q: I’m here to ... – I’m probably wrong,

    TP: There is no wrong.

    Q: OK, I’m looking for something

    TP: You’re looking for a better experience

    Q: No actually, I wondering if I’m looking in the right direction

    TP: There isn’t one. So seekers, people come here, apparently come here, seeking a better experience or a different way of living for themselves which will support and bring them a better experience of life. That isn’t available here. This is about death. It’s about the end of that which seeks to find a better experience. This is about the death of that which feels it is separate that’s what can go on here. But there’s no one that can do anything about that.

    Q: So what is the point?

    TP: There is no point. This is a meeting which is absolutely, completely, pointless. It’s of no value to the seeker at all.

    Q: Will it make someone’s life better?

    TP: No it won’t. It won’t make your life better. First of all, it will point out what you may hear, that you don’t have a life, and so the whole idea of your life could be better by being here completely collapses.

    Q: Will I be a better person? 

    TP: No, you certainly won’t be a better person. If anything, you’ll be a bit worse. You won’t be anything. What possibly could happen is the sudden collapse of the idea that there is anyone to be anything or to get anywhere. It’s the collapse of the whole sense or illusion that you are someone, who by applying a certain principle or process, can reach somewhere called ‘be better.’ There isn’t a better or worse. There isn’t an inner or outer. There isn’t an upper or lower. There is only what is. This is what is. This is what is and what is not. It is and it isn’t. It’s empty performance. It’s a mystery, and you’ll never understand it. I don’t. It can’t be known.” 
    Tony Parsons – London, June 2018 https://www.theopensecret.com/ (ABOVE first 12 minutes, BELOW remainder of 2hr mostly Q&A)

Love and Presence

    In this follow-up to last week's introduction to Presence, Eckhart Tolle discusses the critical role of Presence in our relationships:

    “What is the connection between love and Presence? That’s an interesting question. Of course, first of all, we need to look at love and what that is. Love is usually interpreted as being an emotion. And in a conventional sense, love is when you feel a strong attachment to a person, for example another human being that you fall in love with. And that is a very strong emotion, a clinging emotion. There’s nothing wrong with it.
    But when you look at it more closely, you will find, and you may already have discovered that in your own life how quickly that emotion, that love, can actually turn into its opposite, and suddenly turn into hate. In relationships, how quickly the honeymoon, one, two, four years later, there’s the most intense hatred between the same human beings, who had not long before professed eternal love and thought this person is definitely the person who is going to make me happy. So there’s an emotional thing that’s called love that usually does not last that long and can easily turn into its opposite. 

    There’s also something deeper in human beings. There’s something deeper than an emotion, a certain state of being. And that deeper thing, where you recognize something in the other that is not separate from who you are, something that deeply connects you to the other, that is something different.
    How can you love another human being in a way that is deeper than the transient emotion of love? The only way that the deeper state of love can arise, is by being in that state of consciousness that we call Presence. When you are Present with another human being, then you’re not trapped in the judgments of your mind. You’re not imposing labels on that person. You’re able to look at a person in that space of clear Presence when look at a person, and at the same time feel or sense the Presence that you are, which ultimately is the Presence of Consciousness. And at that moment, you look deeply into that person, and you can sense the same Consciousness that gives you life, in the other person. Regardless of the personality of that person which is the conditioning, regardless of the conditioning of their minds, you can sense something in them, that is One with who you are. So you’re only able to do that when you are Present.

    When you are not Present, you’re identified with your mind, and then all you have are concepts about the other person, or emotions, emotional needs and so on, projected onto the other person. 

     Ultimately, true love, beyond emotion, is the recognition of yourself in the other. So ultimately, you recognize the other, essentially as yourself. Not the personality, but the essence of the other as your Self.
    Somebody already talked about that 2,000 years ago, but it was misunderstood. When you are Present, you love the other as yourself. It does not mean you love the other person as much as yourself. It means you love the other person because you recognize the essence of who you are, in the other. Then you love your neighbor as yourself, to quote from what Jesus said. So that does not require you, necessarily, to be in a so-called relationship with that person. You can encounter a person casually in a restaurant, in an elevator, or buying something. And there can be a moment where you connect with another human being and you sense that essential space of Presence between you. You can sense that this Consciousness that is you, is ultimately also the Consciousness that is the essence of the other person, no matter what their personality manifests at that moment. And that’s a deeply satisfying thing actually to feel the Oneness with the other. So whether or not you are in a relationship with that person, doesn’t really matter. Actually it means that you could have that love emanating from you whenever there is an encounter with another human being. And that is true love. 

    Now when you have a relationship with another person, then it is likely that the emotional love is also present. So in addition to that deeper love, which is the recognition of the other as yourself, you will also have the emotional attachment. But as you start living with the person, you notice that the emotional attachment continues to be there, but is not as important as before. The deeper recognition of the other as yourself, really becomes the foundation for your relationship. And that is spiritual.
    So in any relationship, if the relationship is to last & be satisfying, then you need to actually become Present in that relationship. This means get out of the judgments of your mind and the conditioning of your mind, become Present in the relationship. Becoming Present with the other person for example, is being able to interact and look at the other human being, without any kind of mental labeling, just in this clear space of Presence of Awareness. Then this true love arises. And that means the spiritual dimension becomes the foundation for that relationship where you transcend. Something arises that transcends both your personalities.
    The personalities still operate. There may occasionally still be disagreements and so on, on the purely human level, but something else is present in the relationship that transcends all that. And that can only arise through being Present. So Presence is actually a prerequisite for a deep relationship and a deeply satisfying relationship with another human being.
    And until that happens, relationships are very frustrating. And as you might have noticed, for many people, one of their main sources of suffering are their relationships. The very thing that they look to for fulfillment and happiness, so often turns into their main source of suffering. And that is sad. It doesn’t have to be like that. But for it not to be like that, you need to learn to be Present.”
    Eckhart Tolle Video #2 – Love and Presence https://teachings.eckharttolle.com/love-and-presence-power-of-presence-2021/

"To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things." Zen Master Dogen 

Love + Presence = Intimacy, Oneness, Co-creation

As we learn to fully inhabit the just now, the just this, over & over again,
until it becomes effortless, we begin to sense that
all of this is somehow just emanating out of us.
Millisecond by millisecond, thrillingly, lovingly,
we are dreaming everything into being.
Our universe appearing & disappearing -
'refreshing' - every fraction of a second,
is the subtle tingly sensation, Ezra Bayda's 'anxious quiver of being,'
we feel throughout our body
whenever we simply relax & stop to notice.
Recognizing this central creative role is
vibrantly energizing & empowering.

We recognize how fleeting life is (anicca), how up & down it is (dukkha), and
how radically our body of flesh (anatta) differs from our authentic Self.

“Wisdom tells me I am nothing.
Love tells me I am everything.
And between the two my life flows.”
Nisargadatta Maharaj

   The ancient traditional greeting, "Namaste" encapsulates much of the above : http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Namaste

 Namaste

Too Beautiful to Die?

“Don’t prioritise your looks my friend, as they won’t last the journey.
Your sense of humour though, will only get better with age.
Your intuition will grow and expand like a majestic cloak of wisdom.
Your ability to choose your battles, will be fine-tuned to perfection.
Your capacity for stillness, for living in the moment, will blossom.
Your desire to live each and every moment will transcend all other wants.
Your instinct for knowing what (and who) is worth your time,
will grow and flourish like ivy on a castle wall.
Don’t prioritise your looks my friend,
they will change forevermore,
that pursuit is one of much sadness and disappointment.
Prioritise the uniqueness that make you you, and the invisible magnet that draws in other like-minded souls to dance in your orbit.
These are the things which will only get better."                         Judi Dench

    "The Buddha taught that all phenomena, including thoughts, emotions, & experiences, are marked by three characteristics: impermanence (anicca), suffering or dissatisfaction (dukkha), and not-self (anatta). These three marks apply to all conditioned things—that is, everything except for nirvana. According to the Buddha, fully understanding & appreciating the three marks of existence is essential to realizing enlightenment.
    Everything changes, the Buddha taught. This may seem obvious, but much of the time we relate to things as if their existence were permanent. So when we lose things we think we can’t live without or receive bad news we think will ruin our lives, we experience a great deal of stress. Nothing is permanent, including our lives.
    Dukkha, suffering or dissatisfaction, is among the most misunderstood ideas in Buddhism. Life is dukkha, the Buddha said, but he didn’t mean that it is all unhappiness & disappointment. Rather, he meant that ultimately it cannot satisfy. Even when things do satisfy ― a pleasant time with friends, a wonderful meal, a new car ― the satisfaction doesn’t last because all things are impermanent.
    Anatta—not-self, non-essentiality, or egolessness—is even more difficult to grasp. The Buddha taught that there is no unchanging, permanently existing self that inhabits our bodies. In other words, we do not have a fixed, absolute identity. The experience of “I” continuing through life as a separate, singular being is an illusion, he said. What we call the “self” is a construct of physical, mental, & sensory processes that are interdependent & constantly in flux.
    It is the illusion of a separate, permanent self that chains us to suffering & dissatisfaction, the Buddha said. We put most of our energy into protecting the self, trying to gratify it & clinging to impermanent things we think will enhance it. But belief in a separate, permanent self leads to the craving that, according to the four noble truths, is the source of our suffering.
    The Buddha’s teachings, especially the practice of the eightfold path, provide the medicine to cure our illusions, so that we become less self-centered & less attached to impermanent things. As we investigate the truth of the three marks of existence, we develop factors of enlightenment such as equanimity—the ability not to be jerked around by our likes & dislikes — and serenity." https://tricycle.org/beginners/buddhism/the-buddhas-three-marks-of-existence/ 

    Nirvana (above) - which alone is NOT characterized by impermanence, unsatisfactoriness & not-self - is the awakened state or enlightenment.
    The Buddha was a human being who around 500BCE felt the urgent need to end his own & humanity's existential suffering, found the cure for it, and over a 50-year period, taught thousands of others to reach his level of awakening from suffering. His teachings are universal - for everyone, so there are even Catholic nuns & Jewish Rabbis who at the same time are highly accomplished practitioners of Buddhism, especially Zen.
    Below are glimpses of awakening - experiences of a higher dimension than conditioned phenomena, our usual frame of reference, so words are inadequate:

    "To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things." Zen Master Dogen

    "Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. 

If only they could all see themselves as they really are. 

If only we could see each other that way all the time. 

There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, 

no more greed… I suppose the big problem would be that 

we would fall down and worship each other....

There is no way of telling people that they are 

all walking around shining like the sun...."                                 Thomas Merton

 
    "If we could really, really, really see right now, all that we really, really, really are, we’d see the infinite mystery of God pouring itself out and giving itself away as the intimate immediacy of all that we really are. That vivid state, in the fullness of that state, would be the unitive mystical experience. And then we can learn to be habituated in that state and translate it into love for other people." Jim Finley Interview https://batgap.com/james-finley/

 

     “We are here to find that dimension within ourselves that is deeper than thought.” Eckhart Tolle 

 

    “Carl Jung said, ‘How can we claim the years have taught us anything, if we’ve not learned to sit & listen to the secret that whispers in the brooks?’ 

    So if I look at a fire, for example, with ego-consciousness, I see a fire. But if I gaze into the flames, in that contemplative gazing at the flames, I sense in the flames the intimations of the holiness and the mystery manifesting itself as this flame. 

    That’s why I think when we try to talk about it, we’re trying to grab it in words. But if we sit in meditative silence infused with love, the state of wonder, we intimately taste directly for ourselves for which no words can be found. That’s why we long for the experience to which our words are aluding to, and how to stabilize in it, and how to share it with people.”  Jim Finley EXCEPTIONAL Interview https://batgap.com/james-finley/

“You know you have loved someone
when you have glimpsed in them
that which is too beautiful to die.”                                      Gabriel Marcel

 

by Mollycules www.BuddhaDoodles.com

 

Control? Separateness?

     Every once in a while, "the shit hits the fan." We are now in such a time (logic behind toilet-paper hoarding?).
     But when things are "normal" aren't we deluding ourselves, sleepwalking through life?

     "Don't hope for a life without problems.
      An easy life results in a judgmental and lazy mind." Kyong Ho

    The only thing we can directly control is our attitude. But because we mistakenly believe that external circumstances completely determine how we feel, we invest almost all of our time & energy struggling to control external circumstances & other uncontrollables: constant change, aging, sickness & death. This is an "illusion of control."
     Related to this compulsion, we spend our lives convinced that each of us is a separate, solid 'thing' - a 'self' independent from & usually in a competitive / adversarial relationship with other people, animals, a harsh uncaring environment, life itself. Loneliness & isolation is becoming an increasingly common, serious psycho-social / medical problem. This is the "myth of separation" - the sense of a contracted, separate self. Einstein long ago felt that the most important question a human being needs to answer is: "Is the universe a friendly place or not?" And if we deeply believe that the universe is unfriendly, peace of mind is rarely possible. Joan Borysenko. “Fire in the Soul. A New Psychology of Spiritual Optimism.” Warner Books, 1993.

     But our deeper intelligence tells us that, we're profoundly interconnected & interdependent with everyone & everything - AND - science shows that we're only truly happy while intimately engaged with whoever / whatever we're dealing with in each successive present-moment. Killingsworth MA, Gilbert DT. “A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind.” Science 2010; 330(6006): 932.

     We are very slowly, very gradually evolving beyond, growing up from fear-driven autopilot reactivity ("fight / flight / freeze" - our frightened child mode) and embodying mature balanced kind behavior appropriate to our long-term common good ("tend & befriend" - our wise grandparent mode). The individual / collective contracted ego rigidly insists on remaining isolated & unchanged, trying desperately to retain a sense (illusion) of personal / group control to prevent dreaded chaos. But our deeper intelligence ("heart" / "gut") draws us to expand into, reconnect with a far deeper, more expansive, meaningful life.
 
     From a recent Scientific American article:
     "People who believe that everything is fundamentally one differ in crucial ways from those who do not. In general, those who hold a belief in oneness have a more inclusive identity that reflects their sense of connection with other people, nonhuman animals, and aspects of nature that are all thought to be part of the same 'one thing.' This has some rather broad implications.
     First, this finding is relevant to our current fractured political landscape. It is very interesting that those who reported a greater belief in oneness were also more likely to regard other people like members of their own group and to identify with all of humanity. There is an abundance of identity politics these days, with people believing that their own ideology is the best one, and a belief that those who disagree with one's own ideology are evil or somehow less than human.
     It might be beneficial for people all across the political spectrum to recognize and hold in mind a belief in oneness even as they are asserting their values and political beliefs. Only having 'compassion' for those who are in your in-group, and vilifying or even becoming violent toward those who you perceive as the out-group, is not only antithetical to world peace more broadly, but is also counter-productive to political progress that advances the greater good of all humans on this planet.
     I also think these findings have important implications for education. Even if some adults may be hopeless when it comes to changing their beliefs, most children are not. Other beliefs - such as a belief that intelligence can learn and grow ('growth mindset') - are extraordinarily popular in education these days. However, I wonder what the implications would be if all students were also explicitly trained to believe that we are all part of the same fundamental humanity, actively showing students through group discussions and activities how we all have insecurities and imperfections, and how underneath the superficial differences in opinions and political beliefs, we all have the same fundamental needs for connection, purpose, and to matter in this vast universe.
     Perhaps now, more than ever in the course of human history, we would benefit more from a oneness mindset."
       Scott Barry Kaufman. "What Would Happen If Everyone Truly Believed Everything Is One?"
Scientific American, October 8, 2018 https://getpocket.com/explore/item/what-would-happen-if-everyone-truly-believed-everything-is-one?utm_source=pocket-newtab

“If a living system is suffering from ill health,
the remedy is to connect it with more of itself.”

Francisco Varela

"When we seek for connection
we restore the world to wholeness.
Our seemingly separate lives become meaningful
as we discover how truly necessary we are to each other."

Margaret Wheatley

Meditations: Structured & Unstructured

     “There are many types of meditation practices in various traditions and also outside of traditions. They generally fall into one of two categories: structured or unstructured time sitting in silence and being still.
     Structured practices include concentration practices, such as counting or focusing on the breath, reciting a mantra, or visualizing the guru, and they are used for gathering the scattered mind and developing the ability to focus the mind in one place. They are useful practices in that they initially show the seeker how very active the mind is. They will frustrate the seeker at first; he will be sure he is not doing the practices correctly because his thinking keeps interrupting his focus on the object of concentration.
     Over time, concentration practices do quiet the mind, and they have been shown to have benefits in reducing stress, lowering blood pressure, and bringing moments of calm into a troubled life or a restless mind. If these are the goals, they are quite useful. If you are a seeker of the Truth that frees one from one’s ‘self,’ however, they may or may not lead to liberation, since the ‘meditator’ may continue to feel separate from the meditation.
     Unstructured meditation is an invitation to simply sit without attempting to control anything that arises. It is an invitation to be – to be the silence, not the one who is trying to be silent; to be the awareness, not the one who is trying to be aware. It is not about controlling experience or maintaining a certain state of consciousness. True meditation reveals what IS before any ‘state’ of consciousness. There can be moments where there is no thought, no ego, and no time. We are conscious, if even for a moment, of being what we ARE.
     This type of meditation occurs when consciousness sinks into the unknown, into the depths of silence, where there is no ‘meditator.’ It is a deep listening to silence. Whether thoughts appear or do not appear is not a concern. We are not efforting to maintain a ‘state,’ but rather coming to rest in our natural state. This form of meditation does not engage the ego, as do so many structured meditation techniques. Of course, in the beginning you will encounter the noise of your ‘narrator,’ but you are not engaged in battle with your thinking. In fact, as consciousness comes to rest in its home ground, we discover that thought cannot interrupt the awake silence we eventually discover is our true nature. It is just another phenomenon that comes and goes in the Heart of Awareness.
     This kind of meditation can render the ego more and more transparent, since we are no longer striving to make something happen. It is a beautiful opportunity to unhook from our digital and virtual worlds, from our goal-oriented minds, and simply rest as what we are. We begin to see that when we are not struggling against our thoughts or feelings, something knows how to realign itself with its true nature. In this type of meditation, we also come to connect with the deep well of silence and wisdom into which we can drop our most important existential questions. Into this depth of knowing, we can inquire: Who or what am I, really?”

       Dorothy Hunt. “Ending the Search. From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness.” Sounds True, 2018.

Fogo Island, Newfoundland

Simplifying Life

     Meditation practices "can begin to soften our stance toward our self, toward life in general, and open us to what transcends the habitual. They are invitations to become intimate with the wisdom of silence and stillness.”
     Dorothy Hunt. “Ending the Search. From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness.” Sounds True, 2018 


     "… accept simultaneously the world you see and the world that sees you.
     There is you and then there is the world. If there is even a small gap between them, we fill it with thought. As long as we create this gap, we will never understand. But in Truth, there is no gap between you and the world. To become one with your object is true openness of heart. This is why we do zazen." 
       Dainin Katagiri. “You Have to Say Something. Manifesting Zen Insight.” Shambhala, 1998.


It's not that "I" hear the birds, it's just hearing the birds.
Let yourself BE hearing, seeing, thinking.
It is the false "I" that interrupts the wonder
with the constant desire to think about "I."
And all the while THE WONDER is occurring:
the birds sing, the cars go by,
the body sensations continue,
the heart is beating —
life is a second-by-second miracle.
But dreaming our "I" dreams
we miss it.                                 Charlotte Joko Beck


     “The thinking mind is always thinking about things – it’s always one thought from where the action is. It’s far out to realize that when you’re completely identified with your thinking mind, you’re totally isolated from everything else in the universe.”         Ram Das


     “When we truly live each moment, what happens to the burden of life? … If we are totally what we are, in every second, we begin to experience life as joy. Standing between us and a life of joy are our thoughts, our ideas, our expectations, and our hopes and fears.
     It’s our judgment about what we’re doing that is the cause of our unhappiness.
       Charlotte Joko Beck. “Nothing Special: Living Zen.” HarperCollins, 1995.

Hiking Fogo Island, Newfoundland