Just For One Moment

For just this moment, drop everything.

Drop your future and all the thinking about it. Drop your past, all the words and story that has accumulated over your lifetime.

Drop all your thinking. Drop all the words that come into your head. Don't touch them, let them pass.

Remember it is just for this moment. They are not going anywhere. 

Drop trying to get somewhere or achieve something. Drop wanting, clinging, desiring. 

Just for this moment. 

Allow your mind to empty itself of all worry, tension, expectation, anticipation.

Drop trying to understand, to be understood. Just be empty of all thoughts and all things.

Drop it all.

What is left? What is there when everything is dropped?

The mind will arise and a thought will come in. Drop it.

The mind will have some commentary, some opinion. Drop it.

What is there? Space. Emptiness.

Who is aware of this?

That which cannot be dropped.

The Path Opens Up

If I just sit and watch the birds, my mind wants to commentate. It wants to generate meaning and it wants to tell stories. 

None of this is bad, it just is the nature of the mind. It makes noise.

The problem begins when the noise that the mind makes starts to be taken for "the truth", or "the way that it is", or "the way I am". At that moment, I am no longer connected to life. I am now connected to my interpretation of life - not life itself.

Most of us have become mesmerized by the internal monologue. It has become reality for us. It has become the 'master interpreter' through which we get our experience of life. As we grow older it becomes more and more re-inforced and most of us get trapped inside of our story and can't get out.

 

Because the internal monologue can be non-stop, we can quite possibly live in a perpetual reaction to what our story is telling us about reality. This can be exhausting. The internal monologue wants us to look for things to validate our story, which in turn strengthens our ego - our false sense of self. Over time, we accrete a mental/emotional prison that we can't get out of. We have sealed ourselves in.

To get out of the prison is to stop living in reaction to the internal monologue. We must pull awareness away from identifying with our thoughts. Thoughts are necessary, but they are a tool apart from who we are. We use thoughts. Thoughts should not use us. Hear the internal monologue within and recognize it as not who you are. That is a first step and it is a quantum leap. 

From there, much is revealed and the path opens up.

You Love Life - A Memo To Self

You don't have to be a super-hero.

You don't have to save the planet or be Jesus.

You don't have to have a perfect body and face,

Or be super smart and know all the answers.

You don't have to worry about what people think anymore.

You just have to be you.

And who are you?

Who are you right now?

Accept it fully, deeply.

Remember.

You don't have to be a super-hero.

And what are you capable of?

What do you truly care about?

What is your capacity?

Do not be afraid of going to the core.

Do not be afriad of being who you are, totally expressed in the world.

In your essence you are beautiful, honest, kind.

You are creative, full of life.

You want nothing more than you need.

And find joy in giving.

You are calm, relaxed, flowing.

You love life.

The Power of Life

I have found that a way to keep in balance is to question everything, especially when it comes to my perceptions, my opinions, my preconceptions.

By questioning everything I keep breaking up the accretion of the past - the accumulation of memory that warps the perception of the present moment. I don't allow "ways of being" to get stuck to me and become a prison. I am always questioning my emotions and what I "know" to be true. The "inner" authority is just as dangerous as the "outer" authority.

There is no harm in questioning firmly held beliefs, sacred cows. The truth is always the truth, it can never be destroyed or altered by a cunning mind, and by coming to it again and again in the moment I continually can be in touch with it - rediscover it. The truth is living, alive and moving just like a wave. 

That's why I love the metaphor of surfing on a wave. It is a constant relatedness with the wave, moving with the wave and finding balance on the wave that is the experience of being in alignment with the ocean's power. I can't "know" the wave, I can only be in touch with it, be in a relatedness with it and feel it in the moment. To hold on to a memory of the wave and expect the present wave to be like the memory is to be out of balance with the wave I am surfing now. Now is a totally different wave.

So it is with life. To live in balance with the present moment is to experience and utilize the power of life.

Conscious Living

I have noticed that the vicious circles that my mind can get stuck in are all around what I don't want and projecting that into my future.

This generates a kind of mental/emotional magnetic field - by that I mean my mind thinks about these thoughts repetetively and it doesn't take much to trigger the cascade. One thought leads into the other which generates emotion which generates more thought. Vicious circle.

The trouble is that the thoughts appear to make sense. They are complaining about the "problem" chewing on it over and over, tightening the vise and going deeper into the pain of it. The magnetic field grows stronger and it becomes harder for the mind to break free of the gravitational pull of the pain.

The key is to realize that the mind is a reality generating machine. And you are in control. It is not the external situation and certainly not the past. It is all how my mind is interpreting it.

If the mind is set to focusing on what it doesn't want, then it is set on a path that will lead to seeing a future filled with what it doesn't want. A future that has to be avoided at all costs, a future that is a "life sentence", a future that is problematic, uninspiring. This creates an urgency and sometimes, panic. 

If I start to consciously take control of my mind and begin to focus it on what I do want, then things shift. I start to focus and project into the future what inspires me, what I want to express. There can be some inertia at first, maybe even the old pattern will begin to argue about how it is not possible, and how miserable things are. This is good. The little monster of the mind is becoming exposed. Take note of the negativity within and what it is saying. What is it committed to? The danger of listening to this negativity will become apparent and make it easier to recognize and drop. When you know something is literally dangerous, you don't get into confusion around it. You avoid it at all costs. 

Start saying waht you want. I want to be joyful, I want to be powerful, I want love in my life, I want to love, I want to experience an abiding peace, I want to make a difference in the lives of others, I want to be free, I want to make a great living doing what I love, I want to travel, I want to create, etc.. Sky is the limit. 

Feel the difference from one mode of the mind to the other. One is heavy, one is light. One is limited and binding, one is infinite and freeing. One creates a bleak future that I want to avoid, the other creates a future that I look forward to living into.

Create your own reality. Create an amazing future to live into by using the power of your mind consciously. 

Finding Power

One thing I have noticed in my time is this. 

I spent the first part of my life accumulating knowledge and a sense of self. 

Who was I? 

What was I supposed ot be doing in life? 

What was my purpose?

The more I accumulated the heavier I got. I wasn't aware of this at the time, but I did experience the symptoms of it. 

I was trying to figure it out. I was using something limited - my knowledge and intellect - to try to decipher something unlimited and unknowable - like the universe and my place in it.

I traversed those mountains, banging my head against the wall for a while until I saw that all the accumulated baggage of my past was the cause of why my journey through life was so heavy, so confusing, so hard. I had to let all this accumulated knowledge - who I thought I was - go.

But then I found out it was hard to let it go. All the accumulated stuff was who I was. I had formed an identity from it.

So I had to let go of it piece by piece. 

Some I let go freely. Some I had to endure the pain of carrying it until it became too much. Some of it I still can see how it has its hooks in. Some parts of myself have led me into dark spaces where I have to rediscover who I want to be apart from my past habits. It's all old habits, old ways of being, old patterns. Most of them are not even mine, they are inherited from generations before me. All of it is limiting, fear-based and conflicted.

The key is clearing ourselves out. Recognizing and letting go of all these old patterns. Creating what we want in the moment and inventing a future that we are excited to live into. 

Our capacity to create and ideate our own reality is power. 

Back Into Balance

Knowing stuff takes time. Knowing how to do things. Knowing how to use a computer. Knowing how to speak a language. 

This is all in the realm of accumulating knowledge to be skillful in something. It is a matter of storing up enough memory and then recalling it. It takes time.

It seems to me though that there is some other form of intelligence that operates within us. A form of intelligence that is not accumulated but is revealed holistically - all at once. These experiences sometimes overwhelm the intellect and change our perception of ourself and our life. 

This other state, this other form of intelligence is not accumulated. You don't learn just one fragment and then stack it on another. Rather, you see the whole thing at once. It is a breakthrough, a transformation, where before the insight you see things one way and after it you see things another way.

This form of intelligence has nothing to do with spreadsheets and data points, but it can give insight on how best to use them. It is like a light in the dark room. It reveals things that we had no idea were there. It makes us capable of things that we didn't know we could achieve. It makes us aware of more than just the single part and expands our view to the whole.

Baseball players and other athletes call this "being in the zone", artists call it inspiration, scientists call it a quantum leap, monks call it samadhi.

I feel like exploring this kind of intelligence is the key to bringing ourselves back into balance and order, and by doing that, we in turn begin bringing the whole of humanity back into balance and order.

Direct Perception

Words are not really good at communicating what is actual.

If I focus on words too much they can pull me out of the actual and into the conceptual.

To live in the actual takes something. It takes an unwavering, investgative mind. It takes a commitment to wipe away everything that the mind has accumulated over time and see what is actually there without any prejudice or conditioning. 

It takes setting everything else aside - all the distractions of life - and finding out for oneself this most important mystery.

Is it possible to be in direct relationship with all life without the interference of thought?

That is the beginning of the inquiry that leads beyond the conceptual.

Restoring My Soul

Underneath my concern, peace abides.

Underneath my fears, peace abides.

Peace surrounds all things, surrounds all thought. 

Every atom exists in space. 

We are mostly space.

And yet it is that infinitesimally small fraction of the universe that we are obsessed with. 

Thought and form are dreamlike, illusory by their very nature.

My mind thinks that space is not worth paying attention to.

Yet from space, from no-thing, everything is born. 

It is the fountainhead of life.

I withdraw attention from things, from thoughts, and slowly put my attention on the vast, vibrant silence of the universe.

My soul is restored.

Be Free

Everything that we seek is underneath the noise and drama of the world and our own minds.

All the peace, joy and love that the religions, sages and poets write and talk about is already present within us. It is just covered up.

It is a constant field of being, eternal, still, yet alive.

It is the source.

All our worries and fears cover it up. 

All our grasping and clinging, fighting and escaping, obscures our awareness of it.

All of the noise and drama takes us out of grace.

See the ego for what it is and be free.

Sanctuary

A long time ago, my yoga instructor had us do an exercise that stuck with me.

It was about noticing the one thing that was always the same throughout our lives.

He had us all remember a moment from five years ago, then ten, then twenty, then thirty. Then he would have us notice the one thing that was consistent throughout all those times.

Our emotions change throughout our lives. Our thoughts change. Things change around us. Our bodies change. People around us change. Was there anything that didn't change? 

There was something internal that didn't change. A sense of "me". A constant presence that is looking out through my eyes, but if I wasn't my emotions, thoughts or my body, then what is that sense of "me"?

It is the awareness before it becomes the thoughts. The awareness before it becomes the emotions. That is the real Self. The true "I am".

The awareness after it becomes the thoughts and emotions is the pseudo-self. The ego. The "little 'I am'" that becomes "I am this" or "I am that". 

That is something I meditate on when I find my ego gaining too much power, when there is too much emotional or mental noise going on. I get present to the "I am" that I am, before it becomes something. 

That is the eye of the storm for me. It grounds me in my body. It gets me in touch with life as it is actually happening because it is the still, silent place where life arises. All things are possible from this empty but vastly alive space. 

It is sanctuary. It is sanity. It is freedom.

Silent Mind

The brain operates the best when there is silence internally. 

It is like a computer in that way. When there are multiple programs open, the processor is trying to deal with many large files. It will run slow and occasionally will crash.

Dwelling on and/or replaying the past - should have, shouldn't have, if only - is a burden on the system.

Creating inner monologues about possible future events - fears, desires - is a burden on the system.

Usually, these are loaded with emotional content, which is even more of a burden to the system.

The mind/brain plays these "movies" about the past and future inside our heads. They often absorb our whole attention. They can make us angry, sad, fearful, depressed, hopeful, elated - any number of emotions. 

Ultimately, they are phantoms, just like a movie projected onto a screen is a phantom. The sensory input is so real that the mind/brain can be fooled into believing that it is real. There is the disconnect from truth. Just notice people in a movie theater reacting to the screen. The play of light, sound on a blank screen can move people into all kinds of emotions. Their brains are all absorbed and reacting to an invented reality.

The mind can invent multiple realities but there is only one truth. 

Only when the mind is silent, free from all past and future concerns, can it percieve truth.

Start With Uncertainty

My mind is so certain.

Each thought that goes through my head is so certain about what it is saying. 

My mind says, "It must be this way." and it suffers.

My mind says, "I don't like this." and it suffers.

My mind says, "I must have that." and it suffers.

My mind has already concluded so many things about myself, my life and others without my even having a say, without me even taking a conscious look.

To surrender is to let go of certainty. To accept is to let go of certainty. To let go of my own authority and that of another is to let go of certainty.

Start with being uncertain - without prejudice or authority - and see what actually is.

Then act from there.

Simple Being

I love watching the birds. 

They move with intensity and purpose, light and agile. 

I see them up close and the innocence is there. Every noise and movement is from that space. 

Even when two birds arrive at the same feeder and there is a brief ruffle of feathers, there is no aggression. It is the way they communicate and that communication is born of innocence and can never contain malice. 

They are not worried. They may be intensely alert but there is no fear. Fear makes one hesitate. Fear plunges one into confusion. A bird never hesitates. It moves or it doesn't.

For some reason I know that simple but powerful space a bird operates from is within me as well. It is action without confusion. Simple being and simple doing. The most direct line with the least amount of thought.

Nature makes me realize that I am already at peace and that gentle happiness is my normal state of being. Not wanting anything to be different than it is. Not clinging to anything. 

Enjoying simple being.

Deep Peace

I have been doing this interesting experiment for a while now and it has given me some insights into how thoughts and emotions create reality.

Something will happen "out there" and I'll have a reaction - maybe a subtle reaction or maybe a bigger reaction. Then my thoughts will kick in and start saying something about it. Then my emotions kick in in reaction to my thoughts. This all happens in a split second.

What I have been doing is to catch all this happening within me. Then I do the following:

I separate the thinking from the actual sensation in my body. I separate what I am saying about it from what is actually happening in my body.

I have noticed that as soon as I disengage thoughts from the emotional response, the feeling that is left dwindles and dissipates. The emotions and the sensations in the body are charged by my mind. The feeling of hurt is kept alive by my mind re-creating and re-playing the scene over and over again. 

I re-live the pain by talking about it in my head.

Watch how the mind wants to come back in and say things about the situation. It wants to make plans about it. It wants revenge - even a small revenge. It wants to be justified, righteous. It wants all kinds of things. 

It is hard to put it aside. We have been conditioned to listen to it. We think the mind holds our salvation.

When the mind is put aside, the turbulence within the body subsides. Then a deep silence is revealed, slowly, bit by bit. 

That is the tip of the peace that surpasses all understanding. 

Try it out.

Being. Balance. Action.

Everything arises from being.

If being is off then everything is off. 

If being is in balance, peace, harmony, then everything is in balance, peace and harmony. All actions come from the space of being.

It is the same with walking, dancing, tai chi. If one foot is placed out of balance, then the next action must compensate for the previous action. There is a cascade of cause and effect.

The sooner one recognizes that there is imbalance, the faster one can come back to being - back to balance - interrupting the cascade that leads to further imbalance. Interrupting the endless flow of cause and effect.

Simply put, be aware in this moment, for this is the moment where life is. This is the moment when you are placing your foot. This is the moment where you are taking the next step.

Breathe. Come into balance. Take the step.

The Journey To Relief

The journey is about getting rid of all the baggage that we have packed to prepare for the journey.

The less we have to carry, the lighter we are, we move with more ease.

The less we hold on to, the less stressed we are, we don't have to worry about forgetting something, leaving something behind.

The baggage is the past. Our sense of self. The ego. 

Being caught up in the ego and its drama slows me down. It takes me out of the moment. It stresses me out. 

I am amazed at how the machinery of my psyche is geared toward accumulating. Storing up all this baggage. It thinks that the baggage is somehow going to help me survive some future challenge or potential catastrophe.

To let go of all this is a great relief. 

Relief opens up all channels - the blood, the brain, the heart. I can accept life and breathe it in. 

Relief is a "no-mind" state. It is true relaxation.

Move toward relief.

Beauty

Trying to hold it all together is a stress.

Trying to be perfect, trying to constantly look good.

Trying to do the right thing, say the right thing.

Trying to please everyone, making sure not to offend anyone.

Trying, trying, trying.

Then the massive failure, and it all comes crashing down.

A mind-made illusion of perfection - "how it should be" - comes to an inglorious end.

And what is left is an honest human being in all its imperfect glory.

Don't pick up the pieces. Don't try to glue together the false image of oneself. Let the fragments fall away. Take a deep breath, and feel the relief of being real. The relief of not having to pretend to be something that we're not. 

The relief of being exposed for what we are.

Underneath that is beauty.

Finding The Good

When we are in emotional pain, we have to find a way to be free of it. 

Emotional pain for me has been my salvation, it taught me what I had to let go of. My emotional pain was my barrier to loving myself and my life. My anger and resistance were my gurus, showing me what I had to release to live a happy life. 

It's not an easy road but the alternative sucks waaaay more. 

The important part - they key - is taking the immense power of our awareness and focusing it on finding the good. 

Finding the good is a muscle. 

The more we use it the more powerful it gets until we are finding good in everything, even the things that most people would consider bad, challenging, scary. 

Negative images of reality drop away because anything negative becomes an access to salvation. To finding the good.

Finding the good is using the power of awareness to transmute reality - burn away the veil of our mental projections. Our egos are rooted in fear. Our egos are a bundle of thought-forms that have accumulated together to form an identity designed to keep us psychologically safe. Our physical safety is hard-wired into our biology. We don't think about dodging a thrown rock or a moving car. 

The ego projects its version of reality on top of what actually is. That's why some people are afraid to leave the house - the world isn't actually that terrifying, but to the ego's projections, it is that way. 

To find the good is to look beyond what the ego is projecting, to burn away the screen that the ego projects its images up on and to see reality as it actually is in the moment. 

That is what perceiving truth is.

(Modified from a letter to a friend)

Radiate Love

I sent a letter to a dear friend of mine. I think what came through is important to everyone. 

I edited it slightly.

The main thing is practice looking for the good. Practice loving people. 

Watch how your mind operates and the mental/emotional bullshit it tries to pull on you to get you riled up or feeling low. 

Start taking notes and notice how there is a staff of high-powered, internal mind-lawyers who are lobbying for your own personal misery and failure. Those are the dudes that you have to recognize as being your mortal enemy. They are the enemy of your happiness, your evolution, your joy, your success and your experiencing real connection to others and love.

Radiate love. Radiate kindness. Radiate your own unique take on life. Bring joy to others. Compliment them. Acknowledge their beauty. Be a light.

Good will come naturally to you. Everyone wants good. Everyone wants a taste of real peace, realness. Get in that space yourself and people will respond. 

That is your primary purpose, to experience that sense of oneness and peace for yourself. Everything else is secondary.

Dissolving All Hurt

It's all about being.

It's all about seeing. 

I am noticing how those two things interact. It is yin and yang. Being and witnessing. The being is the unconditioned space and the witnessing is the Self. They are connected and one thing. 

I had an old hurt bubble up within my being. I instantly felt it unfold, became conscious of it and held it in a space of witnessing presence. 

I saw it for what it was - a memory, an emotion, the past living within me, a movie projection. 

I saw the truth of it - how false it was, a replay of an old hurt, a dead thing. 

I saw the mind-made invented reality of it - the story that my ego had made up about it, old internal monologue, resistance, fear, all of it strengthening the ego further.

 

It was so clear. So apparent. I saw the whole structure of it. It is a machine. Mechanical.

Through constantly bringing my mind into awareness, not resisting, allowing what is to just be, I have gathered an enormous amount of energy that pours into my witnessing consciousness. This is what I would call meditation.

The more I am present, the more my awareness, naturally and without effort, pulls me into the moment, like putting energy into a gyroscope - it becomes more stable and coherent. 

Initially, there is fear which repels everyone when we start to come into the moment. 

Fear about such a commitment, such a path, because it leads to a door through which we cannot return. The ego always wants a back door, an excuse, a reason, a way out. It does not want to be put on the spot. It always flees into the concept of "tomorrow", "soon" or "some other time". The ego is rooted in fear.

The moment is the most gentle but most powerful thing. The ego is terrified of it because the space of the moment is the end of the ego and all its nonsense. The ego cannot exist within the moment. All things that are not truth dissolve in that space. 

I just watched fear move through me and dissolve. The same with an old hurt. Nothing that is false can survive in that space. 

From that space everything is possible.

Let Go Of Thought

Have you ever noticed how one day everything feels off and the next day, even though everything is the same you can deal with it?

I have noticed this innumerable times throughout my life. How my thinking creates my reality - my relationship to the present moment.

When I find myself in a state of suffering or resistance, it is always because I have fallen into the trap of believing in what my thoughts and emotions are saying about the present, the past or the future. I have bought in to what they are saying and I am trying to "figure it out". 

It is like being in a movie theater and getting involved in the plot to such a degree that I think that it is real. The dream becomes a reality.

Thought can invent any number of realities. Realities that are fearful, pleasurable, excited, sad, grim, hopeful - the list is endless. But what do those realities have to do with truth?

What is truth? 

I have found that thought is a generator of realities but those realities have nothing to do with truth.

Truth cannot be touched by thought. Thought can only generate shadows. 

Let go of thought and perhaps truth is there.

Breaking Free

I had this insight the other day while walking.

I imagined that I was a creature that was inside an egg, ready to hatch. 

I was struggling inside the egg to crack the shell. My muscles were getting stronger and I was growing larger but I still hadn't broken free.

Suddenly I was mesmerized. A movie began to play on the inside of the egg shell and it occupied my whole mind. I simply became absorbed in the movie. 

The movie was about me and my worries, fears, future and past. How was I going to make it? What will I do? Where was I going? Why didn't I do this or that? It was an endless stream of self-centered thinking.

The creature that I was forgot all about cracking the egg. The movie was so important to it. If it cracked the egg the movie would stop playing and it would never know what to do, where to go, and how to be. It had to keep watching. It felt its survival depended on it.

The creature eventually became weaker, its muscles atrophied. It forgot all about breaking through the egg. But the egg was not enough. The creature still grew within it and it needed space. It needed another kind of food. The egg was running out of resources. 

The human dilemma is like this. Our concerns are projections of the mind. Our emotions are what keeps us rooted to watching the movie, keeps us attached. 

However, no matter how real it seems, the movie of our mind can be seen for what it is, and our perception of life can transform instantly like clouds being blown from the face of the sun.

Break free of the egg.

Deepening Aliveness

I have found when I am in a rough place - having to struggle to maintain awareness, applying all my energy to see the folly of reacting to my own negativity - and I eventually come out of it, I find that my capacities are increased. My capacity for holding a space of peace, my capacity for love, my capacity for compassion, for aliveness, all of it is increased.

Maybe it works the same as a muscle, I don't know, all I know is my experience.

I also know that when I feel like I am on top of the world and I have reached the pinnacle, within 24 hours I will crash and burn in some fashion. Hubris is a real thing.

Here is a caveat.

To hold the space of awareness with the intention of reaping a future reward will get me nowhere. Believe me, I have tried, but feel free to find out for yourself. It is the ego desiring or wanting to aviod and it is the ego that is suffering. There is no logic there. The ego cannot be free of itself, only awareness can be free and awareness has no goal, no agenda, no self-concerned intention.

Simply watching the turbulence without any intention, desire, or direction. That is what opens the doors and deepens aliveness.

A Key To Ending The Ego

I think that the last weapon in the ego's arsenal is fear.

It seems that fear is the foundation it was created on and if I dig enough into the ego it is the last thing I face.

It hits me with the same vibration that it was created in, a deep, non-verbal terror that my now adult brain tries to interpret, but I have found that believing my brain's interpretation is a mistake and can lead to all kinds of upset, fear, uncertainty, you name it.

This last barrier of the ego is opaque and feels tremendously real but I feel like beyond it is something else, I feel like it is that state before I invented the ego. At some point there was that state - a clear and direct perception of reality through a non-conditioned mind. A childlike state of grace and innocence.

I am at that wall of unknown dread and fear, looking at it, watching my brain attempting to interpret it as if it is something real. My brain feels that fear and then it automatically begins to interpret that fear and put it into my future. My brain is trying to keep me safe, but it doesn't realize that in doing so it is robbing me of my power by generating a fearful future filled with all kinds of doubt, uncertainty, upset and things to be avoided and be hurt about. 

I think that is a serious blind spot for the brain - how it reacts to psychological fear. I think it does it in a way that is similar to physical fear which is great for survival, but it is terrible for psychology - it puts phantoms in our future. 

I think the brain treats emotional hurt in the same way it would treat the fear of a sabertooth cat. It hasn't made the distinction between physical fear and psychological fear. I feel like only our conscious awareness can make that distinction and be free of the autonomic mechanics of the brain. 

The brain then becomes an amazing tool and serves awareness.

Independence

Independent. The dictionary says:

Free from outside control; Not depending on another's authority; Self-governing.

Free from outside control. 

What must the quality of my mind be to be totally free from outside control of any kind? What is the quality of my mind when it is being controlled, swayed or bullied from some outside experience?

Not depending on another's authority.

What is the quality of my mind when it no longer depends on something or someone? What is going on within my mind when it seeks another's authority? Do I need comfort or reassurance? Do I feel not capable? Do I want to fit in?

Self-governing.

What is the quality of my mind when it is self-governing, sovereign and completely autonomous? What is its quality when it is caught in seeking and fear?

Explore independence and find out the depth of it.

Happy 4th of July.

Dissolving The Ego

The ego is built of myths.

Myths about people, oneself, what is right and wrong, what it likes and dislikes.

For the ego to stay in place it has to have all these myths remain as "true". If the myths are threatened it turns to violence, aggression, fear and withdrawal. Fight or flight.

In order to break away from the ego, or as I like to put it, "achieve escape velocity", I must break these myths, I must see the falseness of them, I must disprove them. We become mythbusters.

This doesn't meant dispelling common sense - fear on a physical level is in its right place, respect for danger, adrenaline to get out of a threat - but psychological fear is crippling our capacity to love and be loved, to express ourselves and let go of greed, fear and pain. These are the myths that must be seen as false.

Things that help dispel the myths:

• Acknowledging others - raising other up, helping them be great. The ego wants to be the only 'great one". It want to make all the money, get all the power and all the praise.

• Being aware when fear, anger and hurt arises within my field of awareness. That's step one.

• Not becoming attached to the fear, anger and hurt. Watching it as I would a dangerous animal and allow it to be. That's step two.

• Allowing what is to be as it is without trying to resist it or control it. I call this "surfing the wave of life". It is an exercise in balance, strength, timing and awareness to stay present in the face of life's challenge.

• Apologizing - admission of causing pain or being seen as "bad". Both dissolve the ego's power.

• Listening to people. (This is for an ego that has to be the know-it-all.)

• Speaking up (This is for an ego that has no power and says things like, "no one listens to me")

• Not arguing constantly and letting go of strong opinions, likes and dislikes.

The list is much longer but I have noticed that these applied in my actual life confront my ego and create space around it. It's about not touching it, allowing it to be, seeing it clearly, creating space around it, noticing that it exists within a vast infinite silence - a small bundle of thoughts that has gained amazing self-importance. But for the world to work, the ego needs to be put in its proper place.

Question The Ego

Each day is an opportunity and a challenge.

The question is: Who is showing up for that opportunity or challenge?

If it is an awakened consciousness rooted in the present moment, then anything is possible. One can create anything from that space.

If it is an ego rooted in the past, then it is limited. It has to act from a limited space of being - there are way the ego is and there are ways the ego is not. If we act through the ego we are on a track like a train in that we are bound to it.

Each challenge and opportunity tempts the ego. The ego is running the show by default. The ego is the thing that "makes sense" or "is logical" at first glance. But delve deeper and see that the ego is the root of all suffering, comparison, limitation, lonliness, aggression. The ego makes sense because we have grown up within it. Few have questioned it. "Is this the only way to live?"

There is another way. Prepare for each day by asking the question, "Who is showing up today?"

Distractions

There are many distractions all of them external.

Even thoughts and emotions are external.

"Internal" does not mean "within my skull or my body".

There is a point of awareness that observes all that goes on within the skull and the brain and the body.

That point has no "inside". Everything outside of it is external.

There is no "internal".

What does that mean?

It means that there is no "me". "Me" is only a bundle of external thoughts that I identify with.

It is like a school of fish that takes refuge within a bundle of seaweed that has accumulated in a vast ocean.

"Me" is a gravitational vortex that has accumulated enough nebulous gasses and particles to form a planet. A planet that my awareness has gathered together. A sense of something familiar in a vast, unknowable universe.

When I let go of everything external then awareness is free.

And there is no distraction.

Exposing The Myths

What is the point of being false?

False to another or to oneself?

For most of us, falsehoods are running our lives.

We are conflicted. We say one thing and do something else. We desire certain results and don't do the actions to achieve them. There is a deep, often unconscious conflict within us.

There is a disconnect. Somewhere there is a hidden agenda. 

How do we get back into alignment?

We must start looking so we can see clearly. We must stop being distracted. We must wake up.

If my life is not what I want it to be, it is because there is an internal lie living within me, a hidden falshood that is running like a computer program. I may think I deserve something but deep down I don't. It is something like that, a twist in the message.

It takes effort and intensity of purpose to find these myths but if we are honest with ourselves they bubble up all the time. They are not hard to spot because they are surrounded by resistance and suffering. The challenge is to not be overcome by them, to identify with them, to become them.

We have to expose these myths about ourselves to be free. 

We have to see them for what they are, false, having no value, utterly empty.

Kind of like eating chalk. We know it is a bad idea so we don't do it.

Once we truly "see" these myths - what they do to our lives - we are free of them.

Free Your Mind

I was watching the birds this morning and noticing how intense they are and at the same time how innocent. 

They never do anything half-assed. Every movement is complete with purpose. 

Watching them is kind of like being in a different kind of school. I see how my actions have been incomplete, without awareness and I can see what effect my ego has on all of that.

Ironically, my ego takes power out of my actions - my words and deeds - because the ego is based in the past and, because it is the source of all my suffering, is rooted in fear. 

It is not in the present moment and it is limited by its role - to look good, to never be diminished, to be safe. Seeking pleasure, avoiding pain. Control. 

It is like in the Matrix where Morpheus tells Neo why human beings will always be better than machines because the machines run according to a program from which they cannot deviate.

I think that is why living through the ego is so unfulfilling. It is limited, based in the past, and ultimately not who we are.

It is a mental/emotional prison.

Watch The Ego

A few days ago I watched my ego churn about.

 

It was trying to run old patterns of gripes, complaints, ways of being. 

I was watching it, feeling the disturbance of it rumble through my body. 

There were temptations to buy into it and become upset or get caught in resistance but I knew that it was just an old way of being, a distortion of my perception that was always going to play the same tune. 

Knowing that, I didn't touch it. I just let it be what it was and watched it move past my awareness like a strange creature that was somewhat dangerous.

The result was total freedom from it and a feeling of power and peace. 

In past times I would have bit on the bait and cause damage to myself and others in the form of suffering and drama. By becoming the ego I would be passing on and enhancing a world-wide waveform of complaining, anger, frustration, emotional gravity, etc. 

But when I simply watch the ego bubble up within me and allow it to be without engaging in it, it is like I am transmuting that energy into nothingness - pure potential - to be used with wisdom and conscious intention. 

I feel like it is healing the planet.

Freedom To Be Yourself

Our own particular suffering is the key to our salvation.

Suffering leads to a wound. 

All wounds have their root in a common cause.

Our undifferentiated awareness heals all wounds and ultimately heals the root of all suffering.

Our undifferentiated awareness means an awareness that is not identified with anything - not race, not religion, not gender, not tradition, not culture, not nationality, not judging, criticizing, or analyzing. It is simply the clear lens looking at what is without any meaning attached to it.

It is being able to be in this state of awareness while experiencing the suffering that is the key. It is the awareness that heals.

Our suffering wants to pull us into it, to become it, to act it out. Our suffering has gravity. Our identity has gravity. It wants to pull us down.

Awareness at its essence is totally free, without any constraints. Free to look at what is and from there, create and invent how you want yourself to be.

Seeing The Program

The old programs run within me. I have been watching them this morning.

Some are ancient, handed down from generations past. Some are self-created, recent, only decades old.

The program talks to itself, reinforcing itself, holding itself together.

It creates the "other". Someone out there to be disliked, resisted, attached to, desired.

It creates incompleteness. A sense of always searching, seeking, desiring, hoping. 

To live through the program - that is to be unconscious of it - is to feel this aching sense of inompleteness in everything. Nothing brings fulfillment because the program, the ego, the thought-made sense of self, is thought-created. It is the past trying to exist in the present moment.

Being born from thought means that the ego lives entirely in duality and is caught in the pleasure/pain cycle - seek pleasure, avoid pain.

All the mental/emotional narrative in the head is the ego trying to establish itself as the "I". 

It is only trying to protect us from a psychological sense of threat - that is to say - illusory sense of threat. It only lives in our mind but if not seen for what it is, it will have great impact on the body and the world around us.

Once seen, the program is of no value. In fact it is the greatest obstacle. The ego's proper place is that of a tool not a tyrant.

Focus On A Joy

Focus on a joy. 

One thing, one event that caused a moment of joy.

For me, today, it was a brief moment of real caring between me and a friend.

In some way I feel like it brought something pure into the world. 

A small but significant event that is tipping the balance.

Humanity's consciousness is competetive, violent, aggressive, fearful.

Thousands of years of war are evidence of this.

We are emerging from that consciousness, like the first creatures that ventured onto land from the primordial ocean.

By focusing on a joy we take one small step out of the known and into the unknown.

Focusing on a joy, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant, is a sacred act.

It is a gift to the world.

Seeing Reality

In order to be related to others, to the world and to reality, I must see clearly.

If I see reality through the filter of my opinions then I will be looking at my opinions of reality, not at what reality actually is.

If I see another through my prejudice - who I believe them to be - then I am relating to that, not to who they are in the moment.

I see this as a fact and so I am wondering what is the quality my mind must have to see clearly?

It must be free of all opinion, prejudice, knowledge. It must be silent, alert, sensitive. 

Only then will it be able to see and relate to reality without any distortion.

What Is Important

It takes something.

Weeding a garden takes something.

When I depend on that garden for my life, I am watching that garden closely, protecting it, being vigilant, disciplined, serious. 

I make sure it is not damaged by pests or by others who don't care about gardens. 

If I am depending on that garden for my life, I don't get side-tracked with trivial stuff.

If the garden is unimportant, weeds will grow, it will yield very little if anything. It is at the whim of fate.

My state of consciousness is like a garden. Mental-emotional pests are at it every day. Turmoil within and without pull at my attention - temptations of all kinds - there is a danger of being lost in the storm. 

But when I realize the fact that the garden gives me my life, the storm falls away.

Because nothing out there is that important.

I Am It

Sometimes there is nothing to say about it. 

Life is complete in its incompleteness.

It is whole, total, alive. 

There is no need, nothing to seek.

Somehow in my stillness it has found me.

I am It.

Words Are Not It

How do we wake up out of the ego into our true self?

Seeing the activity of the our ego is a part of it. 

There is the ego and there is the awareness that sees the ego.

Any thought we have is conditioned by the past - all thinking comes from the past - so there's another hint as to what is ego and what is not. 

Simply put, ego is any "thing" that our awareness encounters and our true self is the spacious stillness in which things occur. 

It is one of those paradoxical, hard to grasp things because the true self is beyond thought. Thought cannot capture it, otherwise we could read a book about it and "learn" it. 

I always wanted to "figure it out" by using thought, but that only got me so far. In one way, there is no way to "find" our true self because our true self already "is". There is only slowing down, letting go of clinging to thought and being aware of the space around everything - especially thought. 

That's kind of what meditation is for me.

Words are not it.

The Value Of My Life

Nothing is more important than my state of consciousness.

It is the one thing I can bring peace into and therefore bring peace into the world.

It is my own patch of land within the continent of humanity.

If I pollute my patch of land, it can spread to others. 

If I make my patch of land a work of art it inspires my neighbors.

I see the value in loving myself. I see the value in loving others. I see the value in being joyful.

I have experienced the darkness. I have experienced being disconnected. I have seen what fruits they bear. 

I honor the painful experiences. It is those experiences that keep me intensely vigilant, aware, present.

I know the true value of my life. My words and deeds are fruits that come from my consciousness.

It is a garden that I must tend with all my being.

Honesty

I am looking into myself. 

One question I am asking is, "How pure can my honesty with myself be?" 

I find that in order to really get to the core of my self - to really be true to myself - I have to look without any filter, with out any pretense, without any deception.

I have to look without desire for an outcome, without desire to look good or get something.

I have to look without ego.

I have to look with complete humility in order to see clearly who I am being in the world.

Everything Is Beautiful

Sometimes the way is lost. 

But the instant I recognize that the way is lost, I am back on the path. I am myself. I am no longer the storm.

Everything else is just turbulence - the mental chatter, the emotions, painful memories, upsets - all that is the storm that is churning around the essential awareness of being lost.

Once I realize that I am lost in the storm, I wait and watch the turbulence. 

Every storm passes.

The temptation to act out of the space of being lost is the challenge. The temptation to judge and evaluate myself and my life out of that space must be seen with great intensity. It can be a source of immense suffering.

I don't act from that space. I see all opinions as danger. I hardly speak from that space. I have found that it is best to remain silent. Words perpetuate the space that we are in.

When I take all the energy of my consciousness from the storm it dissipates. Sometimes instantly, sometimes it can take a few days. I remain patient, not forcing, just watching, allowing. 

Then it is gone.

And everything is beautiful.

Truth Is

Truth is a living thing, it is not dead.

Truth is a moment to moment experience. That is why it cannot be understood - captured by knowledge and the intellect. You are either in truth or in thought about it.

Let the mind relax. It is not going to "find" truth. All the questions, searching, seeking is just the intellect thinking that it can capture the one thing that it can never comprehend. It is the past trying to comprehend the present. They are not even in the same space. You will find truth in the body before you will find truth in thinking.

Truth is like balance. It cannot be found in books. One can only be diligent, vigilant, open, unafraid and the experience of truth is suddenly there.

Truth is simple. Relax. Breathe. That is enough. There is no need, no urgency, no pressure where truth is - all that must be put away to be present with truth.

Truth is being. Truth is space.

Truth is.

Say Yes

Is fear just context? By context I mean the filter through which our awareness views reality.

Is the context mutable?

Does our context shift from day to day? Is our context static or changing?

Can we totally transform the context?

I am about to commit to an ambitious project. My initial reaction is fear. The reasons for not doing it rise up in my inner monologue and begin reinforcing the fearful context that is my unconscious reaction. Self doubt, not enough time, I'll fail, fear of stress, wanting to be comfortable. Those inner conversations destroy any possibility and are limiting. They put up a fence. They keep me sleepy - half alive.

Then I become conscious of it. The whole movement of it. The fear, the reaction, the monologue and its reasons. I see the aim of the monologue - its intention.

I realize that it is the status quo. The inner monologue becomes the bars of the prison of my self. It is the context that keeps me small, safe, apart from life and aliveness. There is no adventure possible within that context, nor is there expansion. I will not know myself fully if I follow that path.

Can I transform the context - my default view - of the situation from one of fear, weakness and limitation to one of power and mastery?

All I can do is say "yes" and begin to speak powerfully. Use words that give me a different context in relating to the project - to my life. Talk about it from a space of enthusiasm and excitement. Visualize success. Approach it with integrity and discipline.

Love every minute of it because it is my life.

Space And Stillness

It is an unfolding, a flowering.

Somedays it feels like it will never happen.

Like there is a dormancy.

But that is an illusion. The instrument is just dull.

Imagine that you have a seismometer that can only register earthquakes above 2.0 on the Richter scale. There are many vibrations within the earth, it is moving and changing, constantly alive, but your instrument is not reading anything.

It can only read extreme fluctuations in the earth.

Now imagine that you have an instrument that can read the entire Richter scale. You would be receiving constant feedback from the earth. You know every move that goes on within it.

Your instrument has become more sensitive, refined. Meditation is what brings the still awareness to the instrument of the body and its energy field. The more still and silent the mind, the more sensitive the instrument.

Now imagine that you have an instrument so sensitive that it registers a shockwave when a mote of dust lands on a table top.

Being A Clear Channel

A while back my buddy and I were talking about how children are in this state of wonder and innocence about the world. Everything is amazing and interesting.

I was talking about how everything around us is a miracle. Color, sound, even a blade of grass is an amazing, miraculous thing.

I also said that it is interesting how quickly human beings get used to the miraculous. If dragons flew out of a volcano in Iceland, it would take about three weeks for humanity to get used to that idea and then we'd be on to the next thing. No joke.

He mentioned that the brain must be wired in such a way to as to be able to mute the effect of the miraculous. If we stayed in that wonder we would be liable to be eaten. It has to be some mechanism related to survival.

It seems to me that after a certain amount of time, there is an impulse to return to that innocence with the wisdom gained through being an adult and going through the dark night of the soul.

A return to childlike wonder at the world and the grace of innocence is a return to sanity - a feeling of oneness with the world.

This feeling of oneness is a clear channel through which many wonderful things come in to the world.

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is like a fire. The more you give the more you get.

The more you give the brighter you are because it sparks enthusiasm in another and they become bright.

It is a positive syndrome and it is fueled by the creative impulse of the universe.

It is one of those things that the more energy is put into it the greater capacity for energy I have.

The reason for this is that there is no resistance anymore. Enthusiasm does not have any resistance to it, it is intensely alive, alert and filled with passion.

The scientific parallel to this is superconductivity. Miraculous things are possible. So it is with enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm is derived from the Greek enthous which means "possessed by a god; inspired"

Inspired means "to breathe life into".

To go to the core of one's being is to find the source of enthusiasm, to find the source of one's life.

To be connected to that source is to fulfill one's purpose totally.

Taking A Stand

It's all okay.

Every hardship, every pain, every conflict that I have endured has freed me from myself.

I had to look in the right place, I had to be vigilant and intense in my inquiry. There was work to be done. Discomfort is a great motivator.

Who we are when everything is comfortable, is one thing. It's easy to be when life is comfortable.

But who do we become when things become uncomfortable is another thing entirely. This is where the real work begins and this is where suffering can be turned into salvation and bliss.

It's all about being. It's all about seeing clearly. It's all about taking a stand.

A Virtuous Circle Begins

There is this interesting quote in the Bible: "Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them."

For me, it explains a principle of life that I have observed within myself. It has to do with expanding capacities.

The more I focus on something or express something, the more capacity I will have for it. Joy, love, balance, compassion, enthusiasm, etc. This is also true for the destructive emotions.

At a certain point there is a syphon effect. It take an effort to pump the liquid at first but after a while, gravity does the rest and then there is a syndrome. These are the virtuous and vicious circles.

The hardest thing to do is to interrupt the flow of a vicious circle when it is in motion.

But knowing that nothing will stop the vicious circle unless I become conscious of it and act makes me realize the cost.

This is my one, wonderful life. No one is going to do it for me. I have to love myself and give myself the gift.

And so I focus on the one, small, good thing and start from there.

A virtuous circle begins.

Let The Storm Pass

When energy is lacking there is a loss of coherence. A loss of balance.

Like when a spinning top begins to slow down.

That is the time to go into meditation.

The mental/emotional monologue will begin to gain power and opacity at this point.

Complaining, anxiety, resistance, upset, overwhelm will all begin to emerge with more force from within until it becomes a problem that I want to escape.

All the old patterns will begin to surface - patterns that I have used in the past to attempt to escape an unsatisfactory relationship to the present moment. Patterns that have all failed.

But the so-called problem is an illusion. It is all stored up pain from the past.

Let it all go. Let all the things that I am juggling fall to the ground. Take a breath. Observe.

I come back into the moment where all peace resides and just enjoy the small, simple things.

Let the storm pass.

Being Alone

Whenever I am alone I become aware of the restlessness within me.

I find that I want to start doing something. Being is not enough.

There is a strong force or impulse to fill in the space of "being" with some kind of "doing".

My mind bombards me with its reasons. There is an emotional component to it as well.

I recognize it all as a state of non-peace.

Underneath it there is total peace.

I start to become aware of breathing. I take deep breaths.

Everything that the mind and emotions are caught up in are counter-productive to feeling this deep state of being.

Feeling and being present to that deep state of being is primary. I know that it is the source of rational, sane, and balanced action.

It is the eye within the storm.

The Importance Of Being

When we meet one another, we usually ask, "How are you doing?"

We never ask, "How are you being?"

When I thought about the responses to that question, the answers have a totally different vibration than then answers to "how are you doing?"

"How are you being?"
"I'm being amazing today."
"I'm being miserable."
"I'm being so-so."
"I'm being great!"

Feel the difference in those answers?

We have a choice in who we are being and who we are being is what gives us our experience of life and aliveness. From our being comes our speaking and actions. From our speaking and our actions comes all results.

Being is all important.

Altering The Field Of Being

In this moment the beginning of all things is possible.

In this moment a total re-incarnation is possible.

A completely new way of being, a completely new context for my life.

And I get to say what that is.

That is the essence of what responsibility is.

It is my response to life - the world "out there".

Is there a lack of love out there?

Is there fear out there?

Who I say I am matters. Who I say I am is the expression that I give my life. It is the manifestation of my being. It is the space from which I speak. Those words have a frequency that alter the field of all being.

Who we are being and what we say from that space transforms the world.

Speaking From A Space

Imagine you were no longer yourself. You are now an empty space for something to exist.

Imagine that whatever you say now goes into that empty space and gives you your life. Your actual experience of being alive.

This is not only what you vocalize externally but what you say internally to yourself.

Who would you want to be?

What would you say to yourself?

What would you tell other people?

This would be living your life as a creation in the moment.
Anything is possible when you are an empty space from which you speak your truth.

You can invent your truth at any moment.

What will your truth be?

The Possibility Of Transformation

How quickly negativity moves in.

It assumes power, it takes over our conscious awareness until it becomes who we are.

And then it talks. It levers the emotions so that we feel urgency, upset and lack. It speaks from feelings of hurt and panic, sadness and fear.

It is hard to become aware that we have been taken over by the pain. By old memories and feelings. It feels real and in that moment it is real.

In that moment the program is running and the robot is functioning but there is no awareness. Everything is on autopilot. We are an automaton that has a predictable reaction to what is out there. That is why we get stuck in patterns and complain about the same thing over and over, year after year.

There is no way out of the program. The program is what it is.

Unless we become aware of it.

Then there is the possibility of transformation.

I, Robot

The ego likes the story.

It likes interpretations. They keep it 'alive'.

Ultimately the ego is made up of multiple interpretations that are fixed in memory.

It has been set up to protect us psychologically.

Once we start to pull away interpretations from 'what is' there is usually resistance. That is the ego trying to protect us. It has a job to do and it is very serious about it.

The ego lives in 'red alert'. From the ego's point of view, there will never be an 'all clear' where we can go back out and play like we did as children. The ego will never sound the 'all clear' because it is made up of the past where all hurt and fear exists.

So how to be free?

See the mechanism of it all. See the operation of it all.

If a robot becomes conscious and aware is it still a robot or does it become something else? A human being will react according to its past - its ego - until it becomes aware of its ego. Then it has a choice.

Do I react or do I choose what I truly want? Am I mindless or mindful?

Be the change you wish to see in the world. This statement requires that we transcend ego and become conscious. Only then will our actions truly reflect who we are.

Unravel The Knot

What does it mean to be profoundly connected to reality?

Reality is what is happening 'out there' in the outside world.

Reality is also what is happening 'in here' in our inner world of thoughts and emotions.

This gets me thinking.

Do our interpretations of reality connect us or separate us from reality?

Do the memories of our past connect us or hinder our being connected to reality?

Does my knowledge connect me or separate me from reality?

Reality is the present moment.

Reality is not what has happened - that is now a memory that was once reality.

Reality is not what will happen - the future is unmanifested as of yet, anything can happen.

To be connected to reality directly I need to just look at it. Not tell a story about it, not interpret it, just see it. Be present to it.

Direct perception of reality generates no suffering. The suffering comes from the story I make up about the direct perception.

Reality = Reality
Story about Reality = Interpretation

Interpretation is something like, "That guy said I was stupid. What a jerk."

Now I have a problem with that guy. He "hurt" me.

The reality of that same situation is: a human being forced air through his vocal chords and made sounds that vibrated the eardrums of another human being. Those vibrations were turned into electrical chemical signals that went to the brain.

Where's the problem here? Where's the hurt?

Pull apart the knot. Unravel the story from reality.

See what is really there.

It Takes No Time

It takes no time to be in a deep state of relatedness with another.
It takes no time to realize the truth.
It takes no time to let go.
It takes no time to transform.
It takes no time to see.
It takes no time to choose.

The root of all being, the abiding essence of who we are exists eternally now.

It takes no time to be consciously present in the now.

Gateway To Salvation

There is a pattern that I have seen throughout my life.

Problem -> Stress about Problem -> Problem solved

The big realization?

The middle part ultimately is optional.

Some may say that there are some problems that do not have solutions.

Those problems are portals into deep self-awareness that ultimately dissolve the ego and its structures by taking the ego into the present moment through great suffering.

All so-called problems are gateways to salvation.

Surfing The Wave

The truth is never not the truth. It is always abiding. It is alive.

I can never know the truth. I cannot possess the truth. I can only feel its presence.

I like to think of the truth as that feeling of balance as I surf a wave. Sometimes I am on the board in complete balance, feeling the power of the wave and the freedom of it. Sometimes I have fallen off the board and there is no possibility of balance - I am a small speck in the turbulent wave of life.

Sometimes I can feel the imminent loss of balance. It is because my mind has gotten in the way.

The wave of life is immediate. It is happening now.

In order to respond to the shifting power of the wave and stay in balance I have to move with it. That means that I also have to be in the present moment - I have to be immediate. I can't be lost in thought, I have to "attend" to the wave.

All the things that come at us in life, all the changes, all the challenges are shifts in the wave.

Those challenges may seem to be "out there" but our relatedness to them is internal.

In order to stay in balance we must attend to our internal state of consciousness.

Or we come off the board.

Wipe out.

What Abides Underneath

Underneath all the turbulence there is peace.
Underneath all the noise there is silence.
Underneath all the pretense there is authenticity.
Underneath all the hurt there is compassion.
Underneath all the lies there is truth.

Let go of being attached to the surface layer of reality.
It is what is underneath that has real value.

What is underneath abides eternally.

It is the ground of all being.

Another Facet

Slow everything down.
Take your time.
Be with just the one thing that you are doing now.
Breathe.
Don't let the mind run away with your awareness into worrying or concern about the future.
Let past and future be in the past and future - that is, don't let them invade the present.
When you are present, wonderful things take place - love, peace - these things heal the world and other people.
Your primary function is to be peace, love, compassion. Everything else is secondary.
When you are in a space of peace/love all actions from that space are infused with it.
All this heals the world.

The Treasure Hunt

I have had this experience:

When I wake up in the morning, in that initial microsecond before consciousness comes in, I am a blank slate. Then my mind comes in with all its content, memories, opinions. I have noticed this a lot over my life.

The last couple of mornings I have caught this moment and saw what was flooding into my consciousness - the content of my mind. Most of it was anxious, negative, resistant.

I asked myself, "Is all this true? Or is it all just garbage that I can toss out so that I can create a new reality for myself, one in which I can flourish and grow?"

I immediately began to focus on one thing that I was truly happy about. One thing that I was truly grateful for. One thing that I knew was real and good and let my mind focus on that. Once it started, it began to find other things that were positive. I took it on a treasure hunt of gratefulness. Such a great morning.

My mind is just a machine that needs direction. I am the driver.

That morning I was not asleep at the wheel.

Is There A Choice?

Why does the mind like to complain?

Why is it so easy to slip into negativity?

There are reasons to be mad. There are reasons to be afraid. There are reasons to feel sad.

There are reasons to be happy. There are reasons to be grateful. There are reasons to be inspired.

It is all out there for us to choose.

Do I have a choice?

What will I choose?

The Nature of Relief

Relief.

What is relief? The feeling of letting go of a burden. It is also the creation of space. It is also silence within the mind. Interesting enough, relief is a word that means giving food to the hungry.

We are hungry for the peace and sanity of relief.

When the mind is silent, there is relief. In relief, there are no thoughts that are concerned with a problematic self. In relief, there are no thoughts that are perpetuating a problematic self.
When there are no thoughts there is relief, there is silence, there is peace. That is a fact.

Is it a fact that to have anxiety one must have thoughts?
Is it a fact that to have fear one must have thoughts about it?
Is it a fact that to have depression one must have thoughts?

Is it possible to be afraid and not think?
Is it possible to be anxious and not think?
Is it possible to be depressed and not think?

Take a look. Try it out and see.

Live In The Truth

When the inner and the outer are in sync, then amazing things can happen.

Most of the time we are in contradiction. What we feel internally is not expressed externally.

Why is that?

In my case, it has always been fear. Fear of being ridiculed, fear of being laughed at, fear of making someone angry, fear of rejection. The list is a long one.

Over time I have asked myself this question, "Who is it who is afraid?"

After looking at it I come back to the same answer.

The fear is not who I am. The fear is an invention. It is a bundle of thoughts and emotions. It is those thoughts and emotions resisting an image of a future event that does not exist.

There is nothing to fear other than what the mind says it has to fear.

Reality - what actually is - is the truth. Living through our thought-generated interpretations of reality is living in reaction to something that is not what is actually happening "out there".

Become aware of how your own thoughts generate fear. Know that those thoughts are not who you actually are. Who are you then? I feel that to be in that space of wonder where knowledge is of no use and must be put aside, is a step toward living in the truth of reality.