What CAN We Do?

    I'm sure I'm not alone wanting a wise, big-picture overview of life, so I can live my best life.
    Mystics of all wisdom traditions, passed & living, are connected to & share this wisdom. 

    One of the wisest quotes I've come across:  
    "The most important question to ask ourselves, according to Einstein: 
    'Is the universe a friendly place or not?' ... If we believe that the universe is unfriendly ... peace will be elusive at best." 
    Joan Borysenko. “Fire in the Soul. A New Psychology of Spiritual Optimism.” Warner Books, 1993. 

    Even intelligent, educated people seem overwhelmed by mysticism for many reasons. First and foremost, our culture is by and large ignorant about mystics & mysticism. Our "consumer society" trains us to buy as much as possible as fast as possible, "greed is good," even after 9/11 George W. told Americans to show the world what they're made of, "Go shopping!" We're starving on a restricted diet of junk food (shallow materialistic concerns), and don't even know the vocabulary of nutrition (metaphysics, spirituality). We fear what we don't know, and procrastinate & otherwise avoid learning about it.

    "Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."
    Marie Curie, Nobel Prizes in Physics, & Chemistry 

   "... relax, allow life to be as it is, & open your heart to yourself. It’s easier than you might think, and it could change your life.”
    Kristin Neff. “Self-Compassion. The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.” HarperCollins, 2011. 

 
      "I was born
       when all I once feared
       I could love.”                     Rabia Basri 

      "Once we are willing to be directly intimate with our life as it arises, joy emerges out of the simplest of life experiences." Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara 

      During meditation “you are not escaping the world; you are getting ready to fully embrace it.” Christine Skarda  

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

    SO, what CAN we do? Not should, not must - although our time as individual mortal beings, as well as a species is running out - but absolutely CAN do, because wisdom that is IN ALL of US, the wisdom that is in fact who/what we actually are, is amazingly what we mostly, and in some almost entirely, have forgotten.
    Here's some of what I've understood from the many imho wise elders I've been reading about, listening to on the web, occasionally meeting, and more recently, blogging about: 

 

    Don't Judge. Every day we see outrageous, disgusting behavior on the news. It's disorienting to see how almost half of the US population fervently supports behavior, that in a few years (as Germans did after WWII) they will categorically deny having even known anything about it. So it's hard not to judge terrible behavior. 
    But from a much higher, non-dual perspective, what if we're each born to play a certain role, with a certain set of talents, a certain set of limitations & no matter how wonderful or horrible it appeared, we all did our best. And what if most of our ridiculous behavior was because most (but mercifully not all) of us completely forgot that we took on our role freely, including the fact that we are actually producers & executive directors of the entire play - almost identical to the Jesus being fully human and fully Divine story, except the he had almost complete recall of who he actually was, where he came from, and where he would return to.
    Bewildered? This blog & its video might help: http://www.johnlovas.com/2023/01/the-nearly-unforgivables.html 

 

     Be Discerning. Many of us spend a great deal of time watching / listening to the news & comments about the news. While it's important to perhaps watch / listen to the CBC or BBC news for 30 minutes a day, much more than that is probably masochistic or even an addiction. Doing more & more of what makes you feel sick is not a recipe for optimal healthy.
    Instead of a steady diet of psychopathic politicians, billionaires, "influencers", and other nightmare visions, for the sake of sanity - how about reading about and listening to wise elders? My blogs are all about inspiring, mature, healthy, wise role models, like: 

    James Finley: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=James+Finley .

    Helen Hamilton: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Helen+Hamilton .  

    Rainer Maria Rilke: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Rilke . 

    Robert A. Johnson: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Robert+A.+Johnson

    Rami Shapiro: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Rami+Shapiro . 

    Richard Rohr: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Richard+Rohr .  

    Henry Shukman: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Henry+Shukman .  

    John Welwood: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=John+Welwood .

    Toni Packer: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Toni+Packer . 

    Ram Dass: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Ram+Dass .

    James Hollis: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=James+Hollis . 

    Roger Walsh: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Roger+Walsh .

    David Whyte: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=David+Whyte .

    Norman Fischer: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Norman+Fischer .

    David Steindl-Rast: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=David+Steindl-Rast . 

and MANY MORE wise elders to learn from & be inspired by. 

    It's OUR CHOICE - our free will - whether we immerse ourselves in wisdom - OR - in darkness. "Too busy", yet doomscrolling for hours each day?; is this wisdom stuff "too deep" or "too confusing", and again, "just too busy" to get into it and learn? You can procrastinate and aim at best for feeling superficially OK, "ordinary unhappiness" - OR - discover what life is really about.

 

    Learn & Do Spiritual Practices.  Theory is important BUT not enough. We need to intentionally PRACTICE shifting from being fearful consumer robots to becoming wise elder human beings.
    Our culture is not big on "practices." Some of us might admire the dedication it takes to become world class athletes, dancers, surgeons etc, but most of us just don't have the dedication to put in the time & effort. 
    The ONE area where ALL of us would massively benefit is putting in dedicated time & effort into spiritual practice: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=spiritual+practice 

 

    Be a Nurturing Presence. Only by waking up to who/what we truly are, can we help instead of hinder others to wake up and help others. 
    “… we have to allow our higher nature to show before we can do anything real, before we can be truly responsible people.” Jiyu-Kennett. “The Wild, White Goose. The Diary of a Female Zen Priest.” ed 2. Shasta Abbey Press. 2002.

 

    Be Humble. The ego is a tricky, sticky, persistent trickster. We must regularly check our own BS-meter. A common problem is assuming a massive group ego - thinking one can do even horrible things because "I'm doing God's work." But such "crazy wisdom" is just crazy. To paraphrase Forest Gump, "Crazy is as crazy does." 
    Humility, gentleness, empathy, wisdom & kindness are rarely promoted or even recognized in our consumer culture & partisan religions. 

 

     Learn Self-compassion. The tough, aggressively self-reliant, workaholic individual is venerated these days, while a decent, nurturing, humble person would be branded "a loser" by today's dictators & billionaire CEOs. So decent human beings need to intentionally practice self-compassion, in order to survive & be effective in today's crass, superficial, heartless environment.

 

    Practice Self-awareness. With self-awareness practice, your talk & your walk are kept aligned. Again, humility is crucial. 
    "Self-inquiry" is a specialized, key, self-awareness practice: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Self-inquiry 

 

    Become More Discerning, More Self-compassionate. The more neuroses & "story of me" burdens we shed, the more clearly we see ourselves & what's going on around us. The more clearly we see, the more magnified our remaining (though diminishing) neuroses & other burdens appear to us, so it can seem like we're regressing instead of "getting ahead." So we need more self-compassion & patience with ourself.
    “Felt reality is invariably wept reality, and wept reality is soon compassion and kindness. Decisive and harsh judgments slip away in the tracks of tears. And when we cry, we are revealing our truest, most loving self.” Richard Rohr. “The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage” Convergent Books, 2025.

  

     Live in Joy. Gradually, you will be progressively more peaceful & joyful, regardless of the many challenges & sorrows in your own & loved ones' life, as well as that of the human race. The major, even crippling burden that you will shed is your identification with & constant rehashing of your own 'story of me' AS WELL AS its twin, the constant anxiety of 'what will happen to me?' and of course, vividly imagining the worst possibilities. As this HEAVY PSYCHOLOGIC BURDEN starts to lift, you start to experience 'the peace that surpasses all understanding' ie it must be experienced to be understood. Even this has, if you will, a 'dark side': while you'll see as your own past, no matter how miserable, as just a story, your empathy towards others (even actors playing a sad role in a movie) becomes progressively more powerful. Your job now is embodying peace & joy modeling equanimity even in the midst of chaos, when it's the most essential.

    "This is actually instruction from the Buddha, where he says, ‘Live in joy, in love, even among those who hate. Live in joy, in health, even among the afflicted. Live in joy and peace, even among the troubled. Look within. Be still, free from fears and attachments. Know the sweet joy of living in the way things are in the Way, the Dharma.' 
    And so this is also a challenge. He doesn’t say, let’s get rid of disease and all these problems, but to find a joyful way to be alive amidst it all.”
    Jack Kornfield - Finding Your Self on the Spiritual Path - Point of Relation with Thomas Hübl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fjz7WaTyX4 WONDERFUL MATURE WISDOM - Jack Kornfield at his best

    And some 500 years later, in another incarnation of the Divine, Jesus said, "the poor will always be with us." Fixating on quickly eliminating age-old problems is in itself problematic, akin to "seeing a splinter in another's eye," again from Jesus, advising that we should first address our own significant flaws (‘the beam’ in our own eye) before attempting to correct / "save" others.

“The teachings on Buddha Nature do not mean that there is some nucleus of Buddhhood enclosed in sentient beings 
behind the temporary obscuring stains. 
Rather, our whole existence as sentient beings is in itself 
the sum of temporary stains that float like clouds in the infinite, bright sky of Buddha Nature, the luminous, open expanse 
of our mind that has no limits or boundaries. 
Once these clouds dissolve from the warm rays of the sun 
of wisdom shining in this space, 
nothing within sentient beings has been freed or developed, 
but there is just this radiant expanse without any reference points of cloud-like sentient beings or cloud-free Buddhas." 
Sthiramati, 6th century Indian Buddhist scholar-monk

 

 

     Watching David Ditchfield's 40-minute BBC interview about his Near-Death Experience (NDE) is imho wise use of your precious time: https://www.shineonthestory.com/ 

 

Question!

     “The contemplative branches of every religion dwell in the questioning mind. They dig deeper than the words and doctrines into some ineffable place. 
     Most people think that place of questioning, that no man’s land, is unsettling and scary. But in reality, it’s wondrous. Even when it’s difficult or painful, there’s a feeling of appreciation and wonder. In this space, which is bigger than anything we can define or reduce to a doctrine, we appreciate the reality of being alive beyond our various reality-reducing notions of what we think or are told being alive is. 
     When life is an open question, life is appreciation. We still have to deal with whatever problems we have on a practical level, but underneath that there’s life as open question, immense in all directions – Wow, we’re alive! We have been given the gift of this magical, this mysterious, this impossible-to-define life!” 

Norman Fischer - Lion’s Roar, May 2017

awakeningartsacademy.com

 

Two Levels of Consciousness

     "Everyone is normal until you get to know them." Dave Sim

     "Bow to your own weakness, your own craziness, your own resistance. Congratulate yourself for them. Truly it is a marvel, the extent to which we are selfish, confused, lazy, resentful, and so on. We come by these things honestly. We have been well trained to manifest them at every turn. This is the prodigy of human life bursting forth at its seams, it is the effect of our upbringing, our society, which we appreciate even as we are trying to tame it and bring it gently round to the good. So we make offerings to the demons inside us and we develop a sense of humorous appreciation for our own stupidity. We are in good company! We can laugh at ourselves and everyone else.”
       Norman Fischer, Shambhala Sun, March 2013

     ALL of us have (at least) two levels of consciousness or 'kinds of psychological history':
     "One is the history of pain, discouragement, missed opportunities, unfulfilled hopes, and unrealized possibilities in relationships. Such a history of neurosis has a compelling quality that can freeze the therapeutic relationship into an endless dissection, searching for the origin of inhibited development. The implicit question becomes, ‘Where did things go wrong?’ Such a story is frequently filled with fear, guilt, blame, and aggression; it resembles the history of nations at war, where one war inexorably triggers another in the ageless recycling of insult and territorial revenge. The story line threads together a variety of memories with an explanation of why one event follows another and how one got to be the way one is.
     On the other hand, embedded within the history of neurosis is another kind of history – the history of SANITY. The history of sanity is episodic and often appears fleeting and subtle. This history of wakefulness, dignity, and patience is often lost by people in despair. To perceive the history of sanity, we need the curiosity and effort to look beyond immediate appearances. 
     When the psychotherapist relates directly to wakefulness and becomes curious about the history of sanity, a different kind of relationship can develop: one of mutual appreciation and trust, not based on dependency, hope, or even memory." 
       Edward Podvoll MD in John Welwood ed. “Awakening the Heart. East / West Approaches to Psychotherapy and the Healing Relationship.” Shambhala, 1983.

     In Zen meditation - zazen - we 'just sit.' We sit still, letting go of all the baggage - all our habitual physical / mental / emotional gymnastics. What remains is our original nature - 'our original face, before our mother & father were born.'
     These gymnastics can have a lot of momentum & can keep arising, but instead of habitually entertaining / maintaining / reinforcing these, in this form of meditation we only observe their arising, abiding & natural passing away (which all phenomena do) and we keep embodying our original nature. 
     With patient skillful practice, the intrusiveness of the gymnastics progressively, strikingly diminishes, and gradually & progressively we embody our original nature with growing consistency, regardless of internal / external conditions.

     "The term 'perennial philosophy' was coined by Agostino Steuco (1497-1548) and refers to a fourfold realization: 
          (1) there is only one Reality (call it, among other names, God, Mother, Tao, Allah, Dharmakaya, Brahman, or Great Spirit) that is the source and substance of all creation; 
          (2) that while each of us is a manifestation of this Reality, most of us identify with something much smaller, that is, our culturally conditioned individual ego; 
          (3) that this identification with the smaller self gives rise to needless anxiety, unnecessary suffering, and cross-cultural competition and violence; and 
          (4) that peace, compassion, and justice naturally replace anxiety, needless suffering, competition, and violence when we realize our true nature as a manifestation of this singular Reality. 
     The great sages and mystics of every civilization throughout human history have taught these truths in the language of their time and culture. It is the universality and timelessness of this wisdom that makes it the perfect focus for the spiritually independent seeker."
       Rami Shapiro. “Perennial Wisdom for the Spiritually Independent.” SkyLight Paths, 2013.

Old Stories - OR - Directly Experiencing Reality

    I resonate with the nondual teachings of people like Lisa Cairns, Helen Hamilton, Gangaji, Angelo DiLullo, Henry Shukman, Louise Kay, Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti, Richard Rohr, James Finley, Rami Shapiro, David Steindl-Rast, Norman Fischer, Rumi, Rainer Maria Rilke, etc.

    "I believe that, whatever we’re going to call it – God, Kali or whatever – is a nondual Reality. I don’t believe that there’s a God separate from Nature, who created the world, who judges us, and all that. I’m not a dualist. I’m a nondualist. And so I’m interested in the nondual aspects of Hinduism and Vedanta, in Taoism and Zen, Christianity, Islam, wherever – they all have this nondual perspective among their mystics. I’m interested in that. I will play in all those arenas, because I think they’re all leading us to the same ineffable experience. When you’re talking about that nondual reality, the labels are irrelevant. And I mean, every religious tradition has this mystic element. And because the mystics understand that - God or whatever they’re going to call it - can be experienced directly, in, with, & as you. And I’m interested in that experience. But that’s not what the conventional religious teachers tell you."
    Rami Shapiro "CHALLENGING BELIEFS: Are You a VICTIM of Spiritual Misguidance?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rZLlvXFQ7k 

 
    "The final stage of love is nondual love, or love before division, or love before separation. Love where there is no person or thing to love. There is just love recognizing itself. So, when love looks at something, that love sees itself in a different disguise. It doesn’t see a person or a thing, only recognizes itself."
    Helen Hamilton – “The Pathway of Love” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWkkmLx1G6Y 

    “Vigilance is awareness of what does not disappear even when objects appear. Whether those objects are exquisite or horrible or mundane, always there is awareness aware of itself. Whether those objects are emotional or mental or physical, always there is awareness aware of itself.  
    Pure vigilance must be an ease of recognition; otherwise, there is doing vigilance, and this is already not vigilant. When you hear this thought, Now I am going to do vigilance, ask yourself, ‘Who’ is doing vigilance? This is direct self-inquiry. You will see that it is quite natural to be aware of passing objects as well as aware of what is aware of both passing objects and itself. 
     It is a mistaken understanding that implies vigilance to be a burden. The real burden is the denial of your beingness as awareness itself. The idea that vigilance is a burden comes from the concept of spiritual practice. You are admonished to practice. ‘You have to keep your practice.’ 
    I don’t know what the word practice is translated from, but it is a bad translation, because in English practice means some kind of preparation for a real event. You practice for the football game. You practice for your recital. So I don’t use the word practice in terms of vigilance. I am talking about being vigilance. Be that right now. You are that already. Recognize yourself as that, and be vigilant to your true nature. Then see. Without looking for anything, see. 
    In Western culture, particularly in America, we are trained to know what is going to be ahead and to attempt to make it be what we want it to be. This is why there is so much suffering here, trying to force life to be something based on a particular concept. Then we search for agreement with that concept and fight any disagreement of that concept. Even if we are victorious in our fight, we are left unsatisfied, unfulfilled. 
    Wait and see doesn’t necessarily mean you sit on your couch and never move. It also doesn’t necessarily mean that you get off your couch and move. It is much deeper than that. An active life can be lived as vigilance, and an inactive life can be lived as vigilance. 
    There will be many insights. There will be many revelations and deepening experiences. In the midst of it all, be vigilant to what has not moved, what has always been whole, what has always been radiant & unpolluted. There will be even deeper insights. Enjoy them as they come, wave them good-bye as they pass, and be vigilant to what has not moved, what has not been lost by the experience of loss, and what has not been augmented by the experience of gain. 
    Be vigilance. The deepest joy of the human experience is to be vigilant. It is not a task. It is bliss itself. A bliss that is awake & vigilant to what never moves, to what is always present. Be that. Then you will see that this entity called your lifetime unfolds exquisitely, as a flower unfolds. As it begins to die, it will die exquisitely, as a flower dies. You don’t need to dip it in wax so that it will stay forever at a certain stage. Death is not the enemy. Fear of death is the enemy. Fear of death is the result of the misidentification of yourself as some particular entity. Your true identification is the sky of being.”
    Gangaji. “Freedom and Resolve. Finding Your True Home in the Universe.” Hampton Roads, 2014. VALUABLE little book!

 

    May this guided nondual (30 minute) meditation help you feel into, remember & re-experience deep calm, homecoming & peace - that you (& everyone & everything) already are, have always been, & will always be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkhrKy4FStE

 

    “Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. 
     ... live in the question.” Rainer Maria Rilke

 

 

Resilient Practice

     “If your practice only works when things go well – if you turn away from it when things fall apart, if you don’t know how to turn your difficulties into strength and wisdom, then your work probably won’t be very effective. If, on the other hand, you are able to increase your forbearance and open you heart even more in the face of serious setbacks, you will have achieved the most prized of all spiritual accomplishments: the ability to continuously deepen your strength and love, no matter what happens.”           Norman Fischer, Shambhala Sun, March 2013

Photo: Steve McCurry   http://stevemccurry.com

Orthodoxy - an Instrument Tuned Too Tight

     "A Zen teacher ... needs long patience, deep forbearance and forgiveness, and a healthy sense of the immense tragedy and beauty of human life. The more the teacher has an idea of 'Zen' that students must conform to, the more everyone (teacher included) will suffer, if not at first, then later on as people who were initially inspired by that idea come to feel oppressed or even betrayed by it."

       Norman Fischer. "No Teacher of Zen." Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly, Spring 2014. p51

Tuscan Rainbow, June 2014

The Problem of Evil - a Zen Perspective

     "In Zen language, 'the great death' stands for the nondual sense of life as one. All things, good or bad, desirable or undesirable, express that oneness. To experience the great death is to see, face to face and for oneself, that everything is real, everything is true, everything is just as it is. ...
     The great death, oneness, enlightenment, total acceptance of reality beyond good and evil - this is a necessary step in Zen or any other profound spiritual practice. But although this may be ultimate, it is only a step. Zen calls it 'the great death' for a good reason. It is a kind of 'death.' It requires a complete letting go, a complete relinquishment, in trust, of everything that one has identified as one's life.
     To be truly alive, as Zen sees it, one has to die - to let go of life. But until we are physically dead we can't remain dead. We have to be alive. We can't remain in the darkness and purity of beyond-good-and-evil. We have to arrive in the daylight of this physical, limited world of distinctions and moral choices. Difficult though it may be, there is no escape and no alternative. And yet we celebrate. Having died the great death, we know what a miracle it is to be alive, and how strange and marvelous it is - even with its difficult and sad challenges, which are themselves miraculous."

       Norman Fischer "The Problem of Evil" Shambhala Sun, May 2015. http://www.lionsroar.com/category/shambhala-sun/


     The 'great death' also appears in other wisdom traditions: 
     “At three o’clock, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46)
http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Apr2004/Feature1.asp

MLPhoto88   www.dpreview.com

We All Live in Deep Time

     "Lately I have been thinking about the past, the long long past. Each life comes out of it, and, at the end, each life returns to it. When you forget this - when you think your life is just your own little life - you can feel very lonely and lost. But when you remember it, your life takes on a great weight and a great meaning. You do what you do not only for your life but for the lives that have gone before and for the lives that will come. This means we all live in deep time. 

     The older I get the more I appreciate my parents, my grandparents, and the many generations that have gone before. And the more I appreciate my teachers, and their teachers, and the teachers who have gone before.  The Dharma is a precious thing. It's not for us - we experience it for a minute, and then we pass it on to others who will experience it for a minute and pass it on. It's the passing on, in time, through time, as time (the Dharma may be nothing other than time) that really counts. That counts now, as we live this life with its full power."                   Norman Fischer

http://www.everydayzen.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=303&Itemid=38

 

Patience - Makes Severe Challenges Workable

       “Patience is the capacity to welcome difficulty when it comes, with a spirit of strength, endurance, forbearance, and dignity rather than fear, anxiety, and avoidance. None of us likes to be oppressed or defeated, yet if we can endure oppression and defeat with strength, without whining, we are ennobled by it. Patience makes this possible. In our culture, we think of patience as passive and unglamorous; other qualities like love or compassion or insight are much more popular. But when tough times cause our love to fray into annoyance, our compassion to be overwhelmed by our fear, and our insight to evaporate, then patience begins to make sense. To me it is the most substantial, most serviceable, and most reliable of all spiritual qualities. Without it, all other qualities are shaky.”

       Norman Fischer, Shambhala Sun, March 2013

Photo: Charles Baxter   www.dpreview.com

 

Say YES to it all, NEVER give up, Practice continuously forever

     "Bow to your own weakness, your own craziness, your own resistance. Congratulate yourself for them. Truly it is a marvel, the extent to which we are selfish, confused, lazy, resentful, and so on. We come by these things honestly. We have been well trained to manifest them at every turn. This is the prodigy of human life bursting forth at its seams, it is the effect of our upbringing, our society, which we appreciate even as we are trying to tame it and bring it gently round to the good. So we make offerings to the demons inside us and we develop a sense of humorous appreciation for our own stupidity. We are in good company! We can laugh at ourselves and everyone else.” 

       Norman Fischer, Shambhala Sun, March 2013

      “When I find myself full of fear or desire, I remember that I am dealing with a brain and nervous system that has been hard-wired for millions of years for these emotions. Then I apply one of my favorite mantras, ‘I’m perfectly human.’ When I sit in meditation as a human being rather than as an individual, I feel I am part of a collective effort on the part of our species to right itself, to find a new sanity. As Robert Thurman says of meditation, ‘It’s evolutionary sport.’ In the light of that big perspective, I thank you for being on my team.”      Wes Nisker 

 http://sarahmacdougall.com/

Silence & Stillness

    We identify with our thinking mind / self-talk far more than most of us realize. Our society reinforces this idea that we can solve every challenge with our reductive, linear thinking. This is like confidently attempting to fix computer software problems with a trusty old hammer & screwdriver. The more we foolishly argue with reality & remain alienated from our true self, the more we suffer. This is the BULK of human suffering, and is completely AVOIDABLE.

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

    “Learning to stop thinking sounds a bit paradoxical because usually learning involves thinking. So it’s more like unlearning, because we are conditioned to think continuously. A lot of the time, thinking is not only unnecessary, but also destructive. It cuts you off from the depth of being, of who you are beyond the thinker. The most dreadful limitation for a human being is to know him or herself only as the thinker, with its opinions, beliefs, reactions, and whatever else the mind continuously comes up with. And that cuts you off from that vast dimension of consciousness that is there beyond thinking – not separate from thinking, it makes thinking possible, but it’s deeper than that. And here as we meditate, which is probably not the right word, because it sounds as if we were ‘doing’ something, but we’re not ‘doing’ anything. We’re not ‘doing’ a meditation. But we’re here to realize that, beyond doing, there’s another dimension more vital, that we could call ‘being.’
    And to sense that in yourself, there needs to be at least a gap in the stream of thinking. Even a few seconds is already a slight deepening and a little bit of peace and aliveness, and a little bit of joy, coming through the cracks, so to speak, in what is otherwise a solid wall of thought. But we are here to go beyond that, not just wait for the little cracks to appear occasionally, but to embrace that dimension without which your life is not really that enjoyable. Frustrating in fact, pointless. The continuous worry, upset, anxiety, and complaining – that’s what most peoples’ lives consist of. Maybe yes, the occasional crack is there. Or maybe when they get tired they feel a little bit better because they can’t think anymore, and then they go to sleep. But really, without that deeper dimension, is life worth living? I don’t think so. What for?
    Do you think you’ll ever sort out the problems in your life? Never. You sort out one, and another two appear. So there’s nothing more important than this. And realize, when you stop thinking, or thinking subsides, we could say, you essentially are still there as a conscious presence – a still, conscious, aware space. And that still, conscious, aware space needs to be there in daily life, in the background. It doesn’t mean it can only be there when you don’t think. You access it most deeply when thinking subsides. But as you sense it, you realize, even when you think again, it doesn’t go away completely anymore. That conscious aware space can be there even while thinking happens, or while you’re talking to someone, or dealing with things that need to be done. And then you can enjoy life every moment. But the enjoyment doesn’t come from all the things that happen in your life. It comes from a deeper place. And then what happens, or does not happen, is of secondary importance. You’re not dependent on what happens, or is not happening (when you wanted it to happen).
    And then you move through life embodying two dimensions: the dimension of form, which is thinking and doing; and the dimension of formless presence – the conscious aware space. The two are there simultaneously. The conscious aware space interpenetrates, if that’s the word, the world of form. Then perhaps you realize the truth of the ancient Buddhist scripture, one of the most famous sutras, which says, ‘Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.’ Form and formlessness being there as one. [Zen Buddhism refers to this apparent paradox with, ‘Not one. Not two.’]
    And so, it’s not the absolute truth. It’s a way of talking about it. There are two of you, in any moment, in any situation. There’s the person who thinks, and does things, and deals with life situations and people. There’s you as the person. And then there’s the other you as the conscious presence. So you can still deal with things as a person, but behind that, and even within that, there is the aware space. So you become a spacious person, so to speak.
    Anybody who has not realized this dimension within themselves are not spacious. And of course that still applies to many humans. They are, what’s the opposite of spacious? Let’s say they are dense. The density of the person. You can look at anybody that you know, or even strangers when you observe them, when they go about life, how they deal with things, how they interact with people, how they react or respond to changing circumstances, especially when things go wrong, so to speak, by just observing them you can sense and see how dense or how spacious they are. And it’s not a judgment, you just see it, just the same way as you see whether it’s light or dark. You’re not judging when you say, ‘Oh, it’s getting dark.’ It’s not a judgment. You just see it. So you can see it in others. And sometimes so-called people who are into spiritual awakening, even they can sometimes very quickly, when they are challenged by events, become very dense. The spaciousness is lost.
    So your spiritual practice of course, is everyday life. Can you embody the spaciousness in addition to being a person? So you don’t need to achieve perfection as a person. The person will always have certain limitations and shortcomings. And when Jesus said, ‘Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect,’ he doesn’t refer to the world of form, but the deeper perfection – the wholeness that is spacious presence.
    In ancient Greek philosophy, they often use the term ‘the good.’ What is the good? Where is the good? And of course, we know what it is and where it is. The good is not in the world of form. The world of form is good and bad. Nothing stays good for that long. It either disappears, or turns into its opposite. The good is within you, and it is the formless presence – the source of aliveness, joy, identity, the sense of who you are. The source of that is beingness, presence, spacious awareness – I am.”
    above from Eckhart Tolle's EXCELLENT 20min video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG1JR_w-YmM

    “There is a light in the core of our being that calls us home – one that can only be seen with closed eyes. We can feel it as a radiance in the center of our chest. This light of loving awareness is always here, regardless of our conditioning. It does not matter how many dark paths we have traveled or how many wounds we have inflicted or sustained as we have unknowingly stumbled toward this inner radiance. It does not matter how long we have sleepwalked, seduced by our desires and fears. This call persists until it is answered, until we surrender to who we really are. When we do, we feel ourselves at home wherever we are. A hidden beauty reveals itself in our ordinary life. As the true nature of our Deep Heart is unveiled, we feel increasingly grateful for no reason – grateful to simply be.”
    John J. Prendergast. “The Deep Heart – Our Portal to Presence.” Sounds True, 2019.

    “My compassion is not me being a nice guy. My compassion is me realizing who I am and knowing that having a heart of love for all creatures, all beings, even a blade of grass, is true to who and what I am.
    Our whole life and all parts of it, every moment of it, and all of existence is nothing but compassion and love. We don’t need to produce compassion. We already are compassion. All we need to do is wake up to who and what we are, and then naturally, we’re going to have a heart of love not only in actions that appear to be compassionate but all the time: picking up an object with compassion, walking from one room to another with compassion, and, of course, caring for one another with love.” Norman Fischer

    "There’s only one happiness and it’s who you are. There’s only one place to find lasting happiness, and that is to know who you are and to be who you are.” Francis Lucille

Helen Hamilton "Before duality, I Am" EXCELLENT first 28min of this video: