The Gravity Of Thought

Thought colors our perception of the world. Thoughts inform us how to feel, what to do, how to act. They are incredibly powerful and for most of us they are the shapers of how we experience life and living.

So what thoughts are we thinking? Are we even aware of them? Do we believe them wholly as absolute truth and follow their orders without question?

A dream is a good metaphor. A reality made up entirely of thought. A simulated reality that our monkey brain accepts as real. It reacts to it and feels emotions about it.

So how is so-called waking life different?

Thought still overlays our perception, informing us of its version of the world, not of the world as it is in the now. Thought holds on to the past - it is the past - and keeps us there, living in it.

Until we wake up from the dream of thought.

Make a space if you can. A space between the thought and your perception of the thought. Take as much power out of the thoughts as you can. See that they are like planets, asteroids, suns, galaxies floating through infinite space. They each have their own gravitational pull. Some thoughts are immensely powerful and complex - galactic thoughts - if your awareness gets caught in their gravity you can be caught for days, months, years. A lifetime.

See if you can become aware of space and be free of the gravity of thought.

The Past Can Never Contain The Present

What is awareness and what is thought?

Everything is outside of awareness. There is no "inside" of awareness. Awareness is the singularity. The "I am".

Thought is one of the many things that passes before awareness. It is an object, like the senses and emotion that is fleeting and passes with time.

Why is this even important?

If this is true, then at my most fundamental essence, I am not my thoughts or emotions. Pulling awareness away from thought or emotion and just watching them puts me in touch with something else that is not made up of them. Something else is there. Space, peace, stillness, sacredness, aliveness.

Thought has its place but to be run by thought is to be lost. To give thought so much of my awareness that I cease to be aware - that is the deep human problem that causes all suffering. That has been my experience.

Thought and emotion make up fear, hurt and violence - all the imbalances of the human psyche. They are of the past and have no relationship to the present moment. Thus to live totally within the turmoil - no matter how slight - of thought and emotion is to live in the past, never being able to relate actually to the present moment. The present moment will feel empty, not enough or it will be painful, anxious and I must resist or escape it. The mind will need to get more, to run away, to numb itself.

To live in the past is to pour water into a bucket with a hole in it.

The past can never contain the present.

It Is Not Easy Until It Is

It is hard not to believe the mind.

It is all we seemingly have to perceive reality and it has been warped by experience. It is hard to meet the present moment clearly.

Most, if not all of the time, I am looking at reality through a filter of the past. I am looking at reality through my memories, my experiences, my conditioning.

The question is, am I aware that I am looking through this filter?

If I am not, then I am on rails - so to speak - I will automatically follow the pattern of the past. I have no conscious choice in the matter. In truth, I am not in touch with actual reality - I am in touch with my own perception, my own prejudice, my own interpretation of reality.

The results that I get from the actions that arise from those perceptions are going to be inadequate, meaning they will not reflect the actual reality. They will reflect my perception which is usually based on a negative or painful memory.

Any action that is not responding to the present moment is going to be "out of sync" with what actually is. It will produce a result that falls short, leaves us wanting more, or makes us and/or others suffer.

To be in harmony with what is, our action has to operate from clear perception. That means perception without any bias. Perception without conditioning.

It isn't easy until it is.

Setting My Heart Free

I have noticed an interesting thing over the years.

A child falls down and then instantly looks at the parent. It's a minor scrape.
In that fraction of a second the parent's reaction determines the child's reaction.
If the parent flips out and runs over in a panic, the child begins crying.
If the parent calmly walks over, the child looks curiously at his or her scraped knee, maybe sniffs back a tear.
I have also seen the parent say, "Woah! Awesome wipe out!" and the kid got up smiling and laughing.

Unless we consciously become aware, I think we stay this way throughout our lives in that we look to other's reactions to find out how we should feel about something.

I just went through a situation where I was telling a story that was perfectly fine by me but someone else became very nervous about its content. I then felt their nervousness in my heart and began to doubt myself instantly. I had to quickly catch my own energy that began to spiral into suffering. I had to let go of my friend's reaction and just allow things to be as they are. I felt my heart contract and feel hurt. I just had to be with that and allow it to pass. I encountered my sense of self that had been put there to protect  me from societal condemnation. The self that must be perfect at all costs. A self that is a prison.

If I wasn't aware of how quickly and powerfully the energy of others can take me into hurt, I would have been in for a rough afternoon. I could feel my mind wanting to replay it over and over again - and I let it - just so I could look straight into the face of it and know that it was just my mind attempting to build walls around my heart and protect it in a bomb shelter of protective thoughts. Justifying and making wrong are some of the building blocks that make up this bomb shelter. I wanted to run away from the pain - the pain of another's condemnation - to avoid that pain my mind had created an image of someone who pleases everyone and always says the right thing. I had to let that image crumble and fall apart or try somehow to continue maintaining this impossible image. This source of suffering.

Freedom from pain is allowing the pain to be, then going beyond the pain. I have ceased to continue walling up my heart in a mind-made prison. By allowing the prison to crumble I am setting my heart free.

The Gravity of the Self

Waking up is like breaking the hold of gravity.

There is a weightlessness when we break free of the constraints of the self.

The ego is heaviness. It is dense. It drags us down and keeps us anchored to the past.

 Joy is buoyancy. Peace is an experience of being in a zero point. Bliss is directionless.

What does it take to break free of the heavy, problematic ego?
There are ways that it occupies our minds, keeps us thinking about how to solve its endless problems, worrying about the future, reacting to situations. Letting go of these is the role of vigilant awareness.

What does it take?

It takes weeding the garden of our minds so that something beyond it can grow. That is meditation.

Then there is the deep, hidden unconscious stuff that bubbles up and is the most powerful parts of the ego. The stored hurts that come at us like a volcano or and earthquake. When these arrive, hopefully there is enough energy in awareness to ride it out and watch it pass.

At some point escape velocity happens and we enter space. The space in which all things exist.

At that point, words don't make much sense.

A Leaf In a Stream

A friend asked me how to get out of suffering.

 As we talked some things emerged about the experience of it on various levels.

 The very bottom is unconscious suffering where I am not aware of it and I am defending it with all of my ego. The suffering is "real" and needs to be acted on. It is like seeing a movie projected on a wall and reacting to the image as if it is real - of course it doesn't feel like that. I am in the movie.

 The next step up is being aware off and on that I am suffering but not having the energy to break free of its gravity and often acting out the suffering through guilt, anger, or complaining.

 The next is being aware of the emotions and mental monologue of suffering and letting go of trying to resist it - letting it be there but not acting on it in any way by complaining or lashing out. This is humility. The ego is screaming to act out and I have disengaged the gears to it because I know the cost.

The next is beings aware of the suffering and through the light of conscious awareness dissolving it before it gains any momentum, gravity or reality. The feeling of the emotional and mental heaviness is recognized for what it is and is immediately dropped. This takes energy. By not dissipating energy through various means - stress, scattered thinking, numbing drugs - the energy is there to break free of the gravity of the ego.

 The next level is to see the suffering coming as you would an arriving train at a station. There is no connection to it other than observing it and recognizing it from a distance. There may be a slight tremor as it comes close but I don't get on the train. I know where it goes. Why would I be so foolish?

 After this there is only a deeper awareness of the truth - more and more space around the train. It becomes less loud, less powerful, less significant as it approaches.

Then it is just a leaf in a stream passing by.

Empty Space Is The Key

Today there is nothing to occupy my mind.

There is no work, nothing for the mind to get lost in and it is in these times that a deep sense of restlessness bubbles up. I could call it anxiety or boredom but restlessness encapsulates it the best. At least for me.
 There are the accompanying thoughts that go with this feeling of urgency but they can be summed up into: "I have to do something." The relief for this feeling of anxiety is either drugs or entertainment of some form. Television, the computer, video games but all these forms including the various drugs only cover it up and distract or dull the mind. The urgency remains underneath the entertainment or stupor until even the they fail to quell the anxiousness.

Being okay with doing nothing is primary.

Being crystal clear, full of energy and doing absolutely nothing.

Is that possible?

In order to be in that space, my mind has to come to a stop. Then everything else can flow from that space. Being okay with accomplishing nothing is the bedrock on which great accomplishments are launched. To act from a completely clear and empty space is the key.

Freedom From All Suffering

It is emerging.

It is as if something immense has been covered up by thoughts and emotions. These clouds that are my identity block out the purity of this awareness like clouds across the sun.

 My identity is made up of thoughts that move through my head and trigger emotions stored within the body. That is all that it is. These thoughts and emotions trigger each other and create reactions within consciousness. At some point I became aware of this seemingly endless pattern. The reactions of my so-called internal world with the conditions of the so-called external world. This pattern was interrupted by awareness. Awareness of the whole movement of cause and effect.

Start small.

See just one fragment of this immense pattern. Take something that happens often. Getting mad at a situation. At someone. See it as a scientist would looking at a rat in a maze. Take notes. See the outcome. Watch how the pattern wants to take you over. You become it. You become the anger. This pattern applies to everything.

 See if you can free yourself from just a fragment and you will have discovered the key to freedom from all suffering.

The Mind, Seeing The Futility Of Fear, Lets It Go

Is there a way to completely end all fear?
I do not mean to end fear for a moment of time, I mean to end fear completely within myself so that it no longer exists.

Is that possible?

The reason I ask this question is that I see what fear does to myself and others. I see what fear does to the world. I see that the expression of fear creates discord, violence and pain. Problems that have existed for all time have not been able to be solved because of the persistence of fear. It seems that the ending of fear is vastly important if humanity is to survive.

So what is the actual experience?

In looking at it I see that there are two kinds of "things" I call fear.

One is the direct perception of danger to my physical being - like standing on the edge of a cliff or seeing a dangerous animal. I move physically away.
The other is psychological, a thought/emotion that anticipates an imagined future - whether imminently close or far off - that "I" do not want. My not wanting this future "reality" is a matter of degrees from mild to extreme.

The first kind of fear is biological and keeps me out of danger. No problems there.
The second kind of fear is the trouble-maker.  This fear is in my head and causes an emotional reaction in the body. It is stirred up by thinking. I am reacting to a perception.


This then leads me to other questions:
Who is it who is afraid?
Who is perceiving the fear?
Are those perceptions absolutely correct? 
Looking at the entire span of human history, has fear ever produced a totally sane result?
Do I think "my" fear is going to produce a totally sane result?
Do I think that "my" particular fear is somehow different from millennia of human fear?

It is the intensity of wanting to be free of suffering that brings awareness to looking at the problem of fear.
That energy is needed to open the doors that reveal the whole landscape of consciousness and the root of fear.

The mind, seeing the futility of fear, lets it go.

It Is Kind of Wonderful

The content of my consciousness is an ongoing movement of thoughts and emotions.
I have found that through any effort of will I don't seem to be able to bring this content to a complete stop and resisting it winds up in frustration and a wastage of energy.
What I have learned is that I can just observe it. I don't have to act upon it.
This action of just observing it is like standing on the shore of a river and watching it flow - all the thoughts and emotions flowing by and fading like a storm or clouds across the sun.
There are some beautiful thoughts and emotions that I can appreciate and enjoy.
There are some painful thoughts and emotions that I am just still with - as if I had the flu.
There are some angry thoughts and emotions that I watch like I would a dangerous animal.
Each set of thoughts and emotions comes and goes like a storm or a sunny day.
No matter what they are, they are a part of human life and they will pass - the good and the bad - so observe them and be interested in them like a scientist observing the natural world.
It is kind of wonderful.

Letting Go of What Is False

I have found that some of my so-called "facts" become fiction when challenged.
To transmute a "fact" into a falsehood takes a kind of alert discipline.
When I am holding on to a strongly held belief or mental/emotional state - something I believe to be a fact - I become aware of the emotions behind it. The resistance. The suffering.
I seem to find that the "facts" that have suffering underneath them wind up being strongly held beliefs.
So what is the use of this?
Finding out what is false is pretty important to me. The more and more I weed out the false in my life, the more and more something wonderful shines through.
The less cluttered my life is with the false, the more clear I am. The more I live in harmony. The depth of life occurs.
So what is the false?
Anything that causes conflict, pain, suffering, anxiety, fear - all psychological pain.
There are thing in this world that cause pain - a broken arm, the loss of a loved one but this kind of pain is not false.
The pain of fearing the future, anticipating some imagined event, is what I would call false. The actual event is real, the fearful anticipation of it is self-projected suffering.
Don't take my word for it. Take a look. See what is actual and what is just conceptual.

It Is The Intellect That Seeks

I notice it when I am walking in nature. Whatever is within me that is noisy and rumbling in the background comes to the forefront and I become aware of it.
In order to blend with the silence of the forest I must let go of these concerns and resistances within my mental/emotional being.
It is a process of letting go.
When I let go of these issues, I become more sane, more calm - or rather I merge with the abiding calmness that is always, eternally there. In that calmness there is another kind of knowing, an intelligence that is in harmony with everything.
I keep coming back to this strange realization that a process of taking away yields an intelligence that is vast and deep while a process of accumulation yields a mind that is like a computer which is only able to solve puzzles and regurgitate facts on demand. Accumulation does not seem to yield sanity nor does it yield harmony or anything that is sacred or whole. Accumulation yields an identity that is separate from the whole - thus accumulation yields suffering.
Accumulation does not have anything to do with awareness. It can take it over or obscure it.
Those who seek peace and wholeness must strip away the accumulation of the reactive mind - the intellect/ego which thinks that "it knows" - and let go of seeking.
It is the intellect that seeks.

Use The Force

Every time I come out of a turbulence, I find that there is a great feeling of appreciation for the simple things in my life. It must be that the turbulence of suffering covers up this fact because now that I am sitting here, aware of the gratefulness that is there for the life that surrounds me, I have to admit that it is so.
I have to also admit that any perceived dissatisfaction that I have with my life that causes me to suffer must come from a false or unclear perception of the true nature of what is. It is like I lose touch with the fundamental reality and get lost in a mental/emotional whirlwind of my own making. I know this to be true because many times I have spontaneously "fallen out" of suffering into a complete sense of well-being, usually because I suddenly see the ridiculousness of my argument, suffering or issue with what is.
I have to realize that my perceptual instrument can be very limited in its understanding and scope. I cannot always trust its readings and sometimes I just have to let go and use the Force.

Don't Feed The Monster

When you are in a mental emotional cycle of suffering, it is best to not act
Know that you are on a brief trip and it will end soon but you have to not feed it.
It is like a monster that needs you to feed it. It feeds on your emotions and your thinking. The more you struggle and fight it, the more entrenched it becomes. The more real it becomes.
Watch it and don't react, don't think, don't dance with it. It will leave much faster.
This has been my experience. Some monsters are harder than others but they are all very similar.

As Within, So Without

We are a part of the whole. Nature is fractal.
By consciously stepping out of the pattern we introduce something new into the fabric of the universe.
What does this mean?
Every thing we do and the space we do it from, matters. Nothing is too small. The fabric of the universe is a quantum field of energy and the tiniest fluctuation is recorded and layered upon.
The ego wants the big fanfare, the giant spotlight. Everything is too small for it. It is a massive hole in which miracles can be thrown into and it still does not get enough. It takes the universe and the sublime reality of life for granted. That is how desensitized the ego is. That is how dangerous it is.
If we want peace externally, we must first have peace internally. It does not work the other way around.
Whatever we want externally we must first create internally.
As within, so without.
See the truth in this.

Am I That?

It is night time. The sound of the frogs is crisp and, strangely, brings me joy.
Far off sounds of traffic drift by almost like the sounds of waves.
The night air is cool and the ground still smells of rain.

Everything comes and goes. Sounds, thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions - they are all temporal.
All that remains is space. It is outside of time and infinitely deep.

What is my relationship to that space?

Am I that?

The Instrument

I notice that my whole being is a sensitive instrument. A seismograph that detects tremors inside me and outside me. It detects negativity, excitement, sadness, emotions, resistance, anger, fear, suffering. Imbalances of all kinds within myself and in others.

In the past, it was still sensitive but there was so much noise within that the instrument was lost, I could not sense any disturbances because I was the disturbance. Imagine a seismograph that can only detect earthquakes above 8.5 - that was me.

It only takes intensity to clear out the internal noise. Perhaps there are physical reasons why the seismograph is not sensitive enough - alcohol, drugs, overindulgence - these make the instrument less sensitive. I know this through experience.

The mental and emotional reasons are in - how we cling to the identity, how we want to be right, how we crave more drama, how we want to be "someone", how we want to be heard, how we want to control, our fears and angers. All that generates mental and emotional noise that makes the instrument less sensitive.

Clearing out the noise, letting go of the mental chatter and the emotional churning, seeing it all as just noise is the key. Recognize that there is an argument for everything, for each thread of thinking that says that it is important. It is like throwing things out, there is always some mental or (even stronger) emotional reason to keep it. But it is all junk. In throwing out all the noise, there is no love lost, nothing special is lost, nothing truly important is lost. The capacity to express and feel grows.

 If the instrument is not made sensitive, there is no way to get out of suffering.

Do Not Resist

How do I get out of suffering when I am completely taken over by the identity that suffers?

The only reason why I suffer is that I am acting through a set of conclusions about reality.
This set of conclusions is based on knowledge, which has no relationship to the present moment. Why?
Knowledge is memory. Memory is of the past. The past has no relationship with the present moment.
As soon as it is "now", it is "now". As soon as it is "past", it is "past".
Therefore, all knowledge is not in relationship with the present moment.
Knowledge can serve me mechanically. To bake a cake. To drive a car. To remember words. But knowledge can never "know" something that is alive. It can never know someone. It can never be free. It can never be in harmony with what is.

An argument is holding on to the past. A grievance is holding on to the past.
When the identity that is holding on to the argument realizes that it is doing so, there is a doorway to freedom from the suffering of the argument. It falls away completely.
This takes something. It takes wanting to be free from suffering. It takes wanting peace over wanting to "be right". The identity wants to be right. Being right makes the identity feel stronger.

The identity is afraid. It lives in fear of being hurt. It has built up defenses, walls, aggression. It doesn't want to let go of those things. It is so afraid.

That is why when it reacts to a strong challenge like an angry person, an insult, feeling inferior or feeling afraid, it takes us over with such force that we become it. We are it.

How do I get out of the identity at that moment? How can I be free at that moment?

The only clue is that I am suffering. I am in pain and I will cause pain if I act from that space.

When I know the true cost, I will stop and cease to act. I will not resist. I will not fight. I will only look until I am still, empty and clear. Then I will move from there.

A New Way Of Learning

Knowledge has its place. It is an amazing tool.

It seems that knowledge is an accumulation. I can get more and more of it. It is a thing, like any other thing, like money and technology. Someone - a teacher - can give me more knowledge. I can get it from a book.

More knowledge has not made me a peaceful person. It has not brought a lasting, deep abiding joy. Nor has any other thing brought me this. They may have brought me a momentary 'blip' of novelty - a fleeting joy, but nothing transformative or lasting.

I was walking in the woods, watching my mind slow down, letting all the words go by, not giving them power by becoming concerned or identifying with them. Then there was silence. I was still aware but there was little to no movement of thinking. No concerns about time. I felt peace. I was watching a way of being happening, a sense of wonder. Knowledge was there, dormant, but I could call upon it to operate if I needed it to be there. I was observing a sacred way of living that had nothing to do with knowledge, in fact, it was the act of totally letting go of knowledge that cleared a path for this awareness to arise.

Is knowledge the problem? The stress, the worry, the struggle? Is letting go a way of learning, a way out of suffering?

Live In a "Let Go"

Strange. Life. The experience is beyond any explanation. There really is no way to put it into words because the information is incomplete, like trying to describe something without having the entire picture. Life is always in a state of incompleteness, in a state of motion and transition, there is no static point in which one can claim knowledge.
What does all this mean?It means that all judgements and opinions are relatively worthless. There is something strange though, and that is that everything seems to work out far better than planned when I let go of "having to know". It is like I then become part of that miraculous web of interconnectedness when I stop interfering with my knowledge and conclusions about my situation - what I want and don't want. More and more, I am living my life life in a 'let-go' - like a free fall without needing to know about future or things beyond the moment. Out of that freed-up space arises the miraculous, the unexpected, the sacred. Out of that space arises things happening beyond what I think is possible. It is a form of learning that has nothing to do with accumulation.

The Hot Coal

Why is it that if I grab a hot coal once, I never pick up another one?
Something in my brain links the feeling of pain to an action (series of actions). It is a mechanical thing.

So then why is it that if I think certain thoughts that cause me anxiety and suffering, I don't drop those?
Why don't I immediately see these thoughts and drop them like a hot coal?
I think there are all kinds of reasons why, but I am not so interested in that, I am interested in whether I can be free of suffering. So can I just drop them?

The answer I have found is that I can but I have to perceive reality clearly. I have to recognize the pattern as it is happening or as it begins to happen.


Something happens and I begin to think thoughts that conjure up hurt. The thoughts combine with the hurt (emotion) and begins to color my perception of reality. In essence, I cease to perceive reality as it is and I now perceive reality according to what my suffering says about reality. Take for instance, "They're mad at me. They are jerks. I'm no good." I found that if I live inside that reality, I withdraw, I close off, I become angry and aggressive. I suffer. If I am by myself, I can plunge deep into despair, if I am with another person, I can complain endlessly or I can argue and make them wrong and blame.

Now I can see that pattern. I have been through it enough times to know that the outcome is always some form of hurt.I have seen that the pattern winds up in my suffering which often spills over and hurts another. It is a vicious circle. Pain seeks more pain.

It is a massive cost. It is a hot coal. It is far worse than a hot coal.

So when the pattern begins, when my mind begins to pic up the first subtle (or not so subtle) hints of unhappy thinking, or hurt. I recognize it as imminent danger.

I am en route to destroy my harmony.
I am en route to cause more pain.
I am en route to lose touch with reality and listen to madness.

I have found that it is something that I absolutely cannot abide.

I Will Find Out

I had a pretty interesting insight the other day that is still bubbling.
It has something to do with holding on to ideas of youth.
It's the ego's fear of death and it wants to hold on to the things of youth to pretend that it is immortal - to keep it feeling like it still exists in the past.
It's all about looking at the fact and asking the question, "Is there anything beyond my ego and identity?" What would happen if I dropped it totally? What would happen if I no longer gave it any power, if every time it emerged as a thought or emotion I became aware of it as a danger and made a space around it?
Anyhow, just to look is challenging me at the root. Lots of fear jammed in there and some hard-packed denial and resistance. Can the ego become aware of itself?
What is beyond sex and what is beyond desire and pleasure?
What is beyond being "someone special" and what is beyond "success"?
What is beyond my idea of "the perfect life"?
Can I let it go? Can it be dissolved?
I will find out.

The Fullness of Life

There is salvation in suffering.
It is as if suffering is the fire that burns away the one who suffers. It makes the ego submit.
I am saying this from direct experience of the fact.
There is a cleansing after suffering. There is a return to the essence of what is valuable in life.
This realization may transform my life, or if not experienced completely, the realization will fade and another round of suffering will come and the pattern will continue.
I am aware that death cleanses.
The ego wants immortality, eternal youth, and pleasure.
The ego is also the one who suffers.
The ego cannot refute the inevitability of death and so lives in a state of denial, resistance and escaping.
For the ego to accept death is the end of the ego.
The end of the ego is the end of the one who suffers.
There is peace when the ego is not.
There is fullness of life when the ego is not.
Death is integral for life.

Be the Observer

I cannot stress enough how important it is to not act when in a state of suffering.
I watched as a massive wave of emotional pain flooded through my system pulling at me to fight and resist life. It was like having the flu, draining me of energy and vitality but somehow I managed to stay vigilant and not allow it to grab hold of my consciousness. I was always aware of how dangerous it was and how important it was to not touch it. Its arguments were powerful, why my life was unhappy, why I was unhappy, why I should be upset with one thing and be angry at another thing. It wanted me to identify with it and give it power by complaining and expressing it, but I just watched it, feeling its effect on my body.
Then I felt it become more and more alien. It slowly began to lose its gravity. I felt it loosen its grip. I felt relief begin to flow back into my being.
Every action in a state of inner conflict is fueled by that inner conflict. Every action in a state of anger is an expression of that anger. When in one of those states, cease to act. Make your only act that of observation. Be only that point of observation until the "illness" passes and you will not cause any disturbance in your life.

Letting Go of Anxiety

The mind wants to make things complex.
There has to be some reason, some grand scheme, some ultimate purpose.
It ties itself in knots attempting to figure it out.
It invents complexity upon complexity.
The mind says, "I have not figured it out and I must in order to fulfill my life."
This turns into anxiety and then into deep suffering.

Drop everything the mind is saying. See the fact that each of those thoughts is a hot coal. If you grab on to one, do you not suffer? Each one is dangerous to your state of mind and well being. Don't touch them.

For this moment, just focus on breathing. Know that just breathing is a physiological miracle.

The simple act of being is enough.
To breathe is enough.
To be alive is enough.

Take a Look

Restlessness.
What is it really?
A disturbance. A tension. A resistance.
Time plays a part in it. A future moment is desired. A future moment is feared.
The mind cannot be with what is. It is resisting the moment.
It is at these times the mind desires and the emotions fuel it. It will turn to suffering with ease.
The ego points the finger and accuses the things that surround it, the things that are failing to fulfill it. It will blame and suffer. It will dwell on what should be and what should have been.
Despair may even creep in, take root and grow.

This is the sequence of events when there is no awareness present.
This is what happens when we do not take a moment to really look.

Let It Flow

Wanting, desire, no matter how subtle, block the flow.
Anything that flows needs to be clear. A river, a hose, a channel. They must all be clear of any debris before water can flow through them.
It is so with me. I have observed it.
Where there is a concern.
Where there is desire.
Where there is an expectation.
Where there is resistance.
Where there is suffering.
The flow is cut off and only a limited perspective is available.
From that limited perspective, problems will never be solved completely. From that limited perspective there can be no transformation. There can only be a covering up, a numbing or a distraction of the problem.
It will only postpone it for a short time. It is a repetitive pattern. A weed that keeps growing back.
The limited perspective is the problem.
Relax. Open up all the arteries. Breathe deeply. Let go of the future and past. Drop the mind.
Allow what is to be.
And let it flow.

See It Coming

I see how I operate.
Consciously in some areas and unconsciously in others.
There are still sacred cows, or blind spots that keep cropping up where awareness falls to sleep and the robotic nature of thought takes over.
To see them is the first step. To see the pattern that they create and to know the outcome of that pattern is crucial. The outcome is discord, suffering.
Once the pattern is recognized, then it is up to me to be vigilant and see the train coming. See the signs, feel the rumblings of its approach.
It is the same old train again. The old pattern again. I know where it leads.
I have a ticket to the same old destination that I have been to before time and time again.
The question this time is,
Will I get on board?

No Ego Wants to Die

It is so simple.
But the mind and its little bundle of thoughts that have collected together to form, "me", does not want to be ignored.
It has no place in simplicity. In fact, it begins to unravel within the space of simplicity and that makes it mighty uncomfortable. So it will begin to feel unease. It will create some form of drama - inner or outer - it doesn't matter. It will do anything to create a more solid sense of itself.
If it unravels, it ceases to be.
No ego wants to die.

Renunciation

Thoughts within the head flow like a river. Sometimes they are overwhelming in their volume and intensity and they take me over like a tsunami that I become one with and destroy my surroundings. Sometimes I can see the tsunami coming and I run to high ground and watch it harmlessly flow by, its vast energy dissipating into the space that surrounds it.
I am that space. I am the space in which all the noise of thought operates and moves. It is when I delve into the noise, when I blend and merge with it that I lose my true nature and become the torrent of thinking. I become the past, my identity that is rooted in the past with all the memories, all the emotions all the limitations and preconceptions.
Thought is a tool, nothing more. It must be put in its rightful place. It is my responsibility to be vigilant and see that it does not overtake my consciousness and cause more havoc in the world.
I must pull my portion of this discord from the world.
I renounce thought.

Tunes of a Madman

The thoughts within the head create tension.
They demand reaction and, being unconscious, we are the reaction. We live in reaction.
Unless we wake up and realize that we are automatons reacting to an endless stream of thoughts.
As soon as we see this we are out of it.
Unless the gravity of the thoughts pull our awareness back into the thought stream and we dance once more to the tunes of a madman.