Sometimes Enlightenment Can Be a Real Kick in the A**

Very Clean Enlightenment - This is More Like It

DIEGO:
05:33
hey ciaran
my name is diego, and i´ve been reading your work lately

CIARAN:
05:33
word
how you finding it

DIEGO:
05:34
quite frankly i´m frustrated and angry

CIARAN:
05:34
cripes

DIEGO:
05:34
bc i don't seem to get it

CIARAN:
05:34
yeah
it can be a bugger
so where are you at right now
re the whole
no you thing

DIEGO:
05:35
there is no you, looking at it from that lens

CIARAN:
05:35
ok

DIEGO:
05:35
but i get pissed, bc i only am at the point of mentally understanding it, not seeing it

CIARAN:
05:35
ok
still
that's not a bad point, eh?
could be worse
might not have any idea about it
could be on fire
or in a bag
all of which would be worse
ok dude
look
you have to have a level of understanding
i mean, shit
you might just stumble across it
but that's a million to one
everyone i've ever popped
had to get some level
of clear idea
of what it was they were looking for
that's not just fine
it's important
it really is
and yes
while yes
of course you do need to see it
because that's where the juice is
don't be so down on yourself

DIEGO:
05:37
so it's best to define why i want this to happen?

CIARAN:
05:38
no
that would be silly
ignore that sort of thing
pointless
it's best to get try and get the issue
clear in your head
to the extent that you can
when you are not enlightened
which is to say
you have to allow
for a certain level of haze
but
you still gotta get some sense
of what you're looking for

DIEGO:
05:40
and how do i go about it? other trying to understand or thinking about it

CIARAN:
05:40
well look
the difference with this thing
as opposed to another idea
is that this is actually true
and that changes the playing field a little
in your favour, actually
this no you thing
isn't just true
it's totally true
from every conceivable angle
in every possible way
it could ever be thought of
one of the major problems people have
is that they're trying to see it in this one thing
or maybe from two or three angles
or whatever
and they get stuck in some paradox or other
and they start spinning out
thing is
it's true from every angle
100%
you can look at it from your ownership of a sandwich if you want
whatever
and actually make it
in 10 seconds
it is that total
so point one
is don't worry too much about angle of approach
because all angles hit it
after a single honest step
just pick whatever you feel most comfortable with
the second thing
is what you're actually trying to do
with this angle
or whatever

DIEGO:
05:44
what do you mean by that?

CIARAN:
05:44
well look
i say this over and over
it's like we're so stuck in thinking
that ideas are things
well, not things
that the arena of ideas
is the main arena of interaction
in which we operate
i know i'm getting a little out there
try to stick with it
that we don't really credit reality itself
with actually being there
we think we need to believe this or that
or whatever
otherwise it will go away
people think enlightenment
is like a special kind of confidence
you know?
that if you hold the peace
and believe there's no you
then you'll get all the hot new age babes
or whatever
but it's not like that

DIEGO:
05:46
hahaha im
guilty of that

CIARAN:
05:46
more than anything
cheeky scamp
more than anything
it's like seeing one of those magic eye patterns
like in the film mallrats
"it's a sailboat not a schooner"
if you've ever seen it
the truth is that there is a boat there
you don't see it
because it's unusual for you to look in that way
it's not impossible
or even particularly hard
your eyes focus in and out all the time
but you've just got to jiggle the thing a little
and then pop
sailboat
or schooner or whatever
look
there actually is no you
in real life
it's not a game
or some special thing
that you believe
which is magic
or makes you awesome
by it's internal awesomeness
it's just a single thing
that is actually the truth
really
check it out man
it's trippy as fuck
really
there really is no you
there's just the life
that 'you' think that 'you' are living
but there's no you
there's just thinking
and living
is that not
something of a headfuck?

DIEGO:
05:50
yes it certainly is

CIARAN:
05:50
is it true?

DIEGO:
05:51
honestly, i get glimpse that it isi

CIARAN:
05:51
well
check them
look deeper
find out
find the real truth of this
is this just ciaran talking crap
or is it real?
you get a glimpse of it
glimpse harder
you know?
is it true?
ask yourself that
right now
is it true?

DIEGO:
05:53
it's weird, it clicks in my thoughts

CIARAN:
05:53
is it true?

DIEGO:
05:55
don't know right now

CIARAN:
05:55
find out right now
there is no you
behind your life causing it
or in front of your life
being effected by it
there's just your life
and it's not yours
it's just life
and you
are just the imagination
of yourself
headfuck yes
true?
look
see
look at it
look how totally fucking true it is
it is mental
it is everywhere
look
it's so obvious
it's not magic
it's just the truth
look
look right now
look
it's real dude
look at the fucker
there's no you
in any sense
there's just life
it's crazy, yes
but it's 100% real
right now
look
there's no you

DIEGO:
05:59
have got a headache right now, from looking

CIARAN:
05:59
no you haven't
there's just a headache
it's not your headache
there is no you

DIEGO:
06:01
so life just is?

CIARAN:
06:02
you tell me

DIEGO:
06:02
i'm frustrated and scared by this

CIARAN:
06:02
no you aren't
there's just frustration
and fear
they're not your frustration
and it's not your fear
there is no yo
you

DIEGO:
06:03
that feels so true

CIARAN:
06:03
is it?

DIEGO:
06:04
it is, but there's no change

CIARAN:
06:04
no change in what?
in 'you'?
you dumb bastard?
i will slap you

DIEGO:
06:04
yes, in thinking in terms of me

CIARAN:
06:04
no shit
so
you're not thinking
in terms
of you
there's just thinking in terms of 'you'
and the 'you' involved in that
is a fucking fiction
that does not refer to anything
fucking look you dumb bastard
it's right there
come on
seriously
it's so simple
it's not some mental complex equation
there just isn't a you
at ALL
there's just life
look
and NO
it will not MAGICALLY change things
but
if you see
that it is actually true
yes
it's pretty fucking mental
so look
and see
if it's fucking true or not
now
and don't just stare off into space
repeating it like a mantra
actually look
for the actual answer
to the question
is there really no me?
actually answer it
in real life
for yourself
now

DIEGO:
06:08
there's only the thought of me

CIARAN:
06:08
YES
go on

DIEGO:
06:08
there is no me, it's not anywhere

CIARAN:
06:08
GOOD
YES
go on

DIEGO:
06:08
it's not physical, it's not of substance

CIARAN:
06:08
true

DIEGO:
06:09
it's not fully definable

CIARAN:
06:09
no
it's not in ANY way definable
because it does exist
at ALL
try again
doesn't exist rather
you know what i meant
ahem
there is no you
look
it's incredible isn't it
the totality and the simplicity
of the delusion
it's just huge
but at the same time tiny

DIEGO:
06:10
it is simple

CIARAN:
06:10
yeah
just so simple
it's right there all the time
but we just never look
it's crazy right?
this 'delusion of self'
thing
yeah?

DIEGO:
06:11
its unnecessary

CIARAN:
06:11
of course
is there a you
in any sense?

DIEGO:
06:12
no, it's just a belief, fake

CIARAN:
06:12
uh huh
look at how deep it is
inside everything
it's like the foundation stone
of all human bullshit
there's just life right
this one moving flow
of consciousness and life
we call the present
in it there are thoughts
actions
will
belief
truth
lies
but no you
never a you
incredible
that we would be so deluded
about something so intimate to us

DIEGO:
06:13
everything just is

CIARAN:
06:13
yup
tell you what
keep exploring it
post something up whenever you see something cool
i'm off for a smoke
but will be back
in just a little while
but keep exploring how real it is
as it is
pretty mental to look at
and quite cool

DIEGO:
06:14
thanks man

CIARAN:
06:15
just keep looking
and keep on the conversation
just see if you can't see some more stuff
it is quite cool to look at the truth

DIEGO:
06:16
there's no you to keep protecting
there's no self to keep nurturing
there's no self love
there's no self help
the only thing that is, is freedom

CIARAN:
06:19
freedom indeed my newly enlightened chum
stick with it
you're really getting somewhere now
go further into it
just explore the truth of it
you don't need to persuade yourself of anything
just keep checking it the fuck out
it is quite cool
as i'm sure you'll agree

DIEGO:
06:21
there's a feeling of lightness
and some joy
like a big release

CIARAN:
06:21
yup
that's the one
stay with it
keep looking into the truth of it

DIEGO:
06:23
this moment is very full
full of life

CIARAN:
06:23
isn't it just?

DIEGO:
06:23
there's no struggle

CIARAN:
06:24
nope

DIEGO:
06:24
but more of a childlike curiosity

CIARAN:
06:24
yeah
dude
i think we're finished here
that was rapid
even by the standards
of people who are very quick
you did good here
you're american right?

DIEGO:
06:25
nope, from el salvador

CIARAN:
06:26
but you go to uni in penn state?
how long have you been in america?

DIEGO:
06:26
yeah i went to school there, i was in america for 4 yearsi
then came back to el salvador after graduating

CIARAN:
06:26
ok
cool
not sure what it is
about hispanic people
you guys are very good at this
seriously
hispanic and irish
for whatever reason
no idea why
maybe just the fact
that both groups
are a little insane
i have irish blood
and am something of a nutcase
probably helps
anyway
now you've popped
here's the deal
all the thoughts and stuff
and the feelings
they don't go away
you can if you do nothing now
stagnate at a very shallow level
of enlightenment
so don't
get yourself
some eckhart tolle
there's a great audio thing he does
called 'through the open door'
it's really good
what you want to do now
is to deepen your vision
of the truth
not for a laugh
or because it is magic
but because there is a world
at the mercy of a lie
that's very simple
as you now understand
and cracking a person out of that lie
is not magic
nor is it really
that hard
it's a little tricky
takes a clear eye
a firm hand
and a kind heart
but it absolutely can be reproduced
i have no interest
in recreational buddhas
there is a kind of belief
in my country
Britain
that if a person has the ability to help others
they also have the duty to do so
you now have the ability
to help your people
in a way so deep
and so permanent
that it will change the whole dynamic
of the world
and turn the people of el salvador
into a beacon of truth
that can literally guide the world
out of the dark age
it is currently in
so deepen your state
and sharpen your scalpel
the world has need of you
diego
the question is
what's more appealing to you
the serenity of a mountaintop
or the glory of a free world?
what's it gonna be?

DIEGO:
06:34
definitely help others

CIARAN:
06:34
good man
ok cool
well
you did real good tonight
that was a pleasure

DIEGO:
06:35
have you tried this with relatives?
thanks

CIARAN:
06:35
with some limited success
i used to be pretty harsh with it
you can be clean
and firm
firmness is important
but so is just sort of letting the purity of the truth
do all the heavy lifting for you
anyway
run along now
download some tolle
sign up on the forum
and PM me so I can add you to the list
of enlightened people
and also

DIEGO:
06:36
ok will do

CIARAN:
06:36
start thinking about ways
to get this shit out
ok?

DIEGO:
06:37
ok, thanks
had to say that again

CIARAN:
06:38
haha
no problem hero
this is going on the blog btw

DIEGO:
06:38
going to bed now, catch you later man

CIARAN:
06:38
very nice enlightenment
sure man

There is more where this came from at RUTHLESS TRUTH

Also check out the forum for some gritty one-on-one, get the job done:
Ruthless Truth: The Arena

SIT SILENTLY AND DO NOTHING

ZEN WILL BE YOUR PATH. Dhyana, meditation, will be your path... and Rinzai was one of the greatest meditators. His meditation is the simplest -- JUST SITTING AND DOING NOTHING.

IT IS THE SIMPLEST AND YET THE HARDEST -- because if people are told to do something, they can; even if it is difficult, they can manage to do. But when they are told not to do anything and just to sit, it becomes almost impossible. NOBODY KNOWS HOW TO DO NOTHING, nobody knows how not to do. People know how to do things; it is easier. Once the knack of it comes to your consciousness, you will laugh that it was so simple: one can simply sit.

So, start at least one hour sitting, mm? I will give you other groups that you can do, but make it a point that whenever you have time, to just sit silently under any tree. GO TO THE RIVER OR ANYWHERE AND JUST SIT. There is nothing else to do, just go on sitting for one hour. Thoughts will come -- let them come and go.

Rinzai's famous saying is: SITTING SILENTLY, DOING NOTHING, AND THE GRASS GROWS BY ITSELF. There is no need to do anything -- the grass is growing by itself. And so grows the soul... so grows the inner being!

~ OSHO

*********** *** *********** *** ***********

THE EXPERIENCE OF BEING AT HOME has to be spread slowly, so that for twenty-four hours you are at home -- waking, sleeping. But this is possible only if you learn THE GREATEST ART OF BEING SILENT. Then you are settled in yourself. Then your whole energy is turned into a silent pool, without any ripples.

AND IF YOU CAN ATTAIN THIS STATE... existence does not want you to fulfill any other condition -- this is enough. You will be accepted, welcomed... by all the mysteries and all the splendor of existence. Right now, it is a small taste. But I have made it clear to you why it is happening.

YOU HAVE TO TRY IT ON YOUR OWN. Just go into the forest and sit silently, or by the side of the river, JUST SIT SILENTLY. Or just here in the ashram, anywhere, sit silently -- just being alert of whatever is happening all around, not thinking about it... what this bird is saying. They are not saying anything; they are just feeling so joyous in the early morning with the new life that the sun has brought again -- one day more to dance, to sing, to enjoy the whole expanse of the sky.

Just listen to them, the way you listen to me, and you will feel at home. And slowly, slowly you have to learn that it is not a question of listening, IT IS A QUESTION OF THE INNER CHATTER STOPPING. Then whenever you find the inner chattering is starting, simply say, "Shut up!" ...and you will suddenly be at home.

ONCE THE MIND UNDERSTANDS that you have found something greater, something better, something higher... slowly it recedes into the darkness. Its function is fulfilled; it is no more needed; it is an unwelcome guest.

~ OSHO

Thandie Newton: There Is No Self

Now this is what I'm talking about! Beautiful!

Your Own Heart Is Waiting For You

There are still many gifts unopened from your birthday.

~ Hafiz

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Late Ripeness

Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.

One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.

And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.

I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget -- I kept saying --
that we are all children of the King.

For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.

We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.

Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef -- they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.

I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.

~ Czeslaw Milosz

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"Immobility and silence are not inactive. The flower fills the space with perfume, the candle -- with light. They do nothing yet they change everything by their mere presence."

~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

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"This pure mind... shines forever with the radiance of its own perfection. But most people are not aware of it, and think that mind is just the faculty that sees, hears, feels, and knows. Blinded by their own sight, hearing, feeling, and knowing, they don't perceive the radiance of the source. If they could eliminate all conceptual thinking, this source would appear, like the sun rising..."

~ Huang-po

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Whatever you've been doing, you're using your mind to do it. And your mind will always fool you. It will make you believe you're getting somewhere. You're becoming something great. But it's really the ego. It is the ego that is controlling the mind.

~ Robert Adams

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The entire conversation around awakening, awareness, satsang, advaita, enlightenment, nonduality, etc. was a huge distraction from Love. It is only when I saw, very recently, the pride of "wanting to be special" that I realized how lost I was. I cannot be special. I can only be kind, loving, generous, honest, loyal, humble and diligent in my effort to distinguish the difference between Love and fear.

~ Benjamin Smythe

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Your own Heart is waiting for you when you're sick and tired and done scouring the landscape of illusion for the substance and love it can never give you.

~Mags Deane

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Oh lovers, where are you going?
Who are you looking for?
Your beloved is right here.

She lives in your own neighborhood.
Her face is veiled.
She hides behind screens calling for you,
While you search and lose yourself
In the wilderness and the desert.

Cease looking for flowers,
There blooms a garden in your own home.
While you go looking for trinkets,
Your treasure house awaits you
In your own being

There is no need for suffering, God is here!

~ Rumi

Listen to Your Life

If someone says, “To be enlightened you must fast and pray all night,”
Have dinner and go to bed.

If you see a sign, “This way to salvation,”
run the other way.

If someone says, "This book is the truth, you can buy it from me,"
Take your money and buy grapes and roses.

If someone says, "He’s talking tonight, thousands will be saved,"
Go for a walk… listen to the birds and watch the clouds, and leave your backpack, your Bible and your Buddha under a tree and hope they will be gone when you return.

Where we are going you can't carry anything, not even your name.

~ John Squadra

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Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way into the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

~ Frederick Buechner

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Mysteriously they entered, those few minutes.
Mysteriously, they left.
As if the great dog of confusion guarding my heart,
who is always sleepless, suddenly slept.
It was not any awakening of the large, not so much as that,
only a stepping back from the petty.
I gazed at the range of blue mountains,
I drank from the stream. Tossed in a small stone from the bank.
Whatever direction the fates of my life might travel, I trusted.
Even the greedy direction, even the grieving, trusted.
There was nothing left to be saved from, bliss nor danger.
The dog's tail wagged a little in his dream.

~ Jane Hirshfield

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Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. there is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.

~ Henry Miller

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As soon as the non-dual language becomes a strategy to manipulate, to try and get away from something, it has become something else. It is no longer on behalf of Truth. Content is nothing. The words are nothing without the Love they spring from. Love has no formulas. It can say anything or nothing, a little smile. It is not about the words.

~ Ramana Spencer

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You made me without name or trace, like the heart and soul.
And You made me hand-clapping without hands, like joy.
I said, "Where am I going, since my soul is in no place?"
You made me without "place" and moving like the spirit.

~ Rumi

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We are, what are we?
We know not, what we are!
For a moment we are blessed
For a moment we are accursed
Some moment we pray and fast
Some moment we are free spirits
Now we declare, 'Only we exist'
Now we declare, 'We don't exist'
For a bit, our heart is calm
In a bit, we weep rivers
Now we say, 'We are self-realized'
Now we ask, 'Who are we?'
'Sachal' we are only That eternally
What other contracts can we make here?

~ Sachal Sarmast

Be Silent

Sit quietly and listen for a voice that says, 'Be more silent.'

~ Rumi

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The role you play on the world's stage has no meaning other than the clear-sightedness with which you play it. Don't lose yourself in your performance - this only blurs the vision of your inner being.

~ Jean Klein

*********** *********** ***********

Student: How did I end up with this role?

Master: No one else wanted it.

*********** *********** ***********

In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.

~ Ram Dass

*********** *********** ***********

I wish I could show you,
when you are lonely or in darkness,
the astonishing Light of your own Being.

~ Hafiz

*********** *********** ***********

When I was the stream, when I was the
forest, when I was still the field,
when I was every hoof, foot
fin and wing, when I
was the sky
itself,

no one ever asked me did I have a purpose, no one ever
wondered was there anything I might need,
for there was nothing
I could not
love

It was when I left all we once where that
the agony began, the fear and questions came,
and I wept, I wept, And tears
I had never known
before.

So I returned to the river, I returned to
the mountains. I asked for their hand in marriage again,
I begged – I begged to wed every object
and creature,

and when they accepted,
God was ever present in my arms.
And he did not say,
'where have you
been?'

for then I knew my soul – every soul -
has always held him.

~ Meister Eckhart

*********** *********** ***********

Walking Out the Door

Has someone ever come up to you, thinking they know you, and started chatting away about people and events you have no knowledge of. You wonder who they're speaking to. Suddenly, they wake up and realize that they don't know you, that you only looked like someone they know or knew.

This is happening to me now. People are writing and speaking to me as if they know me. They don't. I wonder who they think I am. I wonder who they're speaking to. I wonder why they aren't more present with themselves, and me.

It is quite common, isn't it, to assume that we know people, because their name and face and voice are familiar. But we have to be careful, because something may have happened in their hypocenter, the place where earthquakes start. Without our noticing, their entire identity, history, and being may have shifted so suddenly and totally as to make them a new person. Not the old person with new ideas, experiences, and beliefs, but a new person, one we've never met. This can happen to anyone, to all of us. It's often why we undertake personal and spiritual growth work - to become something utterly new.

If we are to serve and support each other in our growth, change and transformation, then we must approach each other with care, especially those closest to us, those we think we know. If we are not careful, our knowing will create a prison for them and us.

Can we approach each other with this level of care, being willing to both know and not know, suspending easy and habitual projections, in order that we may all truly have the opportunity to grow, change, and transform?

Whatever the answer to this question may be, we each ought to be true to who we are, who we've become, who we're becoming. You know as well as I do what it feels like to pretend to be someone you're not, to accept and cooperate with the projections of others. It makes you feel sick, doesn't it? Self-betrayal leaves a bitter taste in one's mouth.

I love Rainer Maria Rilke's poem, "Sometimes a Man":

Sometimes a man stands up during supper

and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,

because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.

And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.

And another man, who remains inside his own house,

dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,

so that his children have to go far out into the world

toward that same church, which he forgot.

A few months ago, I stood up during supper and walked out the door. The children of my past do not know me.

On August 7, 1974, Philippe Petit, the French high-wire artist, walked across a wire he had strung between the two World Trade Center towers. He was on that wire, a quarter mile above ground, for 45 minutes. It was such a catastrophic enterprise, so beyond imagining, a feat of such daring that he walked from one life to another. When he was finished, he left his past. No one could follow him. He had become someone else on that wire.

I wonder what might happen if we were to truly let go of the self we were, and let go of the images we hold of others? I wonder what might happen if we stood up at supper, or breakfast, and walked out the door. I wonder what might happen in 45 minutes, a quarter mile above ground, with nothing but self-surrender to steady us and keep us safe, if never the same.

~ Robert Rabbin

Jean Klein: The Seeker IS the Sought

Student: And during this stay there was a moment of enlightenment?

Jean Klein: Yes, it was a total switch-over from the residual conditioned state to the unconditioned state. Awareness expanded completely and I felt myself in globality.

Student: Had this ever happened before?

Jean Klein: No. There had been glimpses, but this was more than a glimpse. There was no going back. I had found my real ground.

Student: Did you know in the moment that it would be permanent or did you discover this in the days that followed?

Jean Klein: Because of the quality of the switch-over there was no doubt that I could be taken again by duality, and this was confirmed in the days and weeks that followed. I felt a rectification in my body and in my brain, as if all the parts had found their right place, their most comfortable position. I saw all events spontaneously appearing in the non-state, in my total Absence, real Presence.

Student: Could you say what were the exact conditions, physical and mental, before this moment?

Jean Klein: There had been, for two years, a retreat of all the energy commonly used in becoming, so that when some birds crossed my horizon, instead of becoming lost in them, they were lost in me and I found myself in awareness free from all objects. This time, what I admired, the birds, dissolved in my admiring, in Presence. And admiring dissolved in the Admired. Before the birds appeared, I had been in a profound and prolonged state of being open to openness. Now I found myself AS the openness, identical with the openness. Openness was my being. There was no more duality.

Student: Was there any other difference between this time and other times when you had looked at birds?

Jean Klein: Before, there was a looker looking at something. This was a moment when there was simply looking without a looker. Previously, it had been my nature to live in pure perception with objects, not living in the divided mind. I had for a long time ignored the arising of all qualifications.

Student: Ignored?

Jean Klein: It belongs to the traditional approach, and so that of my teacher, never to refuse or indulge in the coming up of qualifications, but simply to ignore, and eventually forget about them. neither to look for freedom nor avoid non-freedom. The mind simply ceased to play a role except in a purely functional way.

Student: How is life different now?

Jean Klein: There is no more identification with time and space, body, senses, and mind. All events simply happen in awareness.

Student: Did your relationships change?

Jean Klein: There was no more relationship. As there's no longer an "I", there is not another.

Student: Can this non-dual state be described at all?

Jean Klein: It is love where the mind is dissolved in love. The seeker IS the sought, and is always so very, very near.

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True detachment comes when things leave us of themselves. And they leave us as soon as we have really understood that they never keep their promises.

~ Jean Klein

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The natural state of the relaxed brain is multidimensional attention. It does not need viewpoints, data, opinions, memory to be alert. When all the directions cease, an organic, non-directed watchfulness remain.
This is the threshold of "I am."

~ Jean Klein

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"Taking oneself to be a person is a habit just like any other. It is the desire to be distinct from one's surroundings, different from others. The person exists when it is formulated as a thought, so we can see that it is nothing but a memory. Repetition gives it a hold, a locality in which to situate itself."

~ Jean Klein

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"Where there's an ego there is purpose. And when there is no sense of "I" there is no purpose. Life is purposeless. There's only beauty in living in the eternal. If you believe you are the individual "I" you are isolated from your surroundings, and this isolation brings feelings of insecurity, fear and anxiety. Then you look for goals. You worry and anticipate. Life doesn't need a reason to be. That is it's beauty."

~ Jean Klein

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"What any desire really aims at, is a state of non-desire. This non-desire is a state in which we demand absolutely nothing. Thus it is a state of extreme abundance, fullness."

~ Jean Klein

Charisma Does Not Equal Enlightenment

Selling Water by the River

In speaking regularly with spiritual seekers, it dawned on me one day how addicted so many of them are to the power of charisma. They swap stories about how powerful this or that teacher is and compare experiences. They get a charge from it, many mistaking charisma for enlightenment. Charisma attracts at all levels: political, sexual, spiritual, etc., and it feeds the ego's desire to feel special. The ego loves getting hits of power—it's like a form of spiritual candy. The candy may be sweet but can you live on it? Does it make you free?

Freedom is not necessarily exciting; it's just free. Very peaceful and quiet, so very quiet. Of course, it is also filled with joy and wonder, but it is not what you imagine. It is much, much less. Many mistake the intoxicating power of otherworldly charisma for enlightenment. More often than not it is simply otherworldly, and not necessarily free or enlightened. In order to be truly free, you must desire to know the truth more than you want to feel good. Because if feeling good is your goal, then as soon as you feel better you will lose interest in what is true. This does not mean that feeling good or experiencing love and bliss is a bad thing. Given the choice, anyone would choose to feel bliss rather than sorrow. It simply means that if this desire to feel good is stronger than the yearning to see, know, and experience Truth, then this desire will always be distorting the perception of what is Real, while corrupting one's deepest integrity.

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Enlightenment has nothing to do with states of consciousness. Whether you are in ego consciousness or unity consciousness is not really the point. I have met many people who have easy access to advanced states of consciousness. Though for some people this may come very easily, I also notice that many of these people are no freer than anyone else. If you don't believe that the ego can exist in very advanced states of consciousness, think again. The point isn't the state of consciousness, even very advanced ones, but an awake mystery that is the source of all states of consciousness. It is even the source of presence and beingness. It is beyond all perception and all experience. I call it "awakeness." To find out that you are empty of emptiness is to die into an aware mystery, which is the source of all existence. It just so happens that that mystery is in love with all of its manifestation and non-manifestation. You find your Self by stepping back out of yourself.

~ Adyashanti

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Today I Awoke

Today I awoke, finally I see the Self has re-turned to the Self.
The Self is none other than the Self.
I am deathless. I am endless. I am free.
The birds outside sing…
The birds outside sing and there am I.
The seeing of leaves on the trees, that seeing am I.
The body breathes, breathing am I.
I am awake and I know that I am awake.
Seen from the old eyes, everything is asleep, a game, a delusion.
But now I am awake. I am the play. I am the game. I am the
delusion.
I am the enlightenment I sought, looking everywhere.
Nothing is separate, nothing is alone.
I am all that I see. All that I smell, taste, touch, feel, think
and know.
I am awake and this awakeness is the same as Shyakyamuni Buddha’s.
Today the leaf has returned to the root.
I am all name and form and beyond all name and form.
I am Spirit, no longer trapped in a body.
I am free. I am free because I am awake.
So ordinary. Who would have thought ? Who could have guessed?
I am home. I am really home. Ten thousand life times.
Ten thousand life times but today I am home.
Ten thousand life times but today I am home.
This is not an experience. This is me.
I am awake. Finally, I am awake.
Nothing has changed, but I am awake.
Before I tasted the root many times and felt, how delicious.
Today I became the root. How ordinary.

~ Adyashanti: My Secret is Silence: Poetry and Sayings of Adyashanti

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Rest and Be Taken

When there is deep abundance
there is nowhere to abide.
There is nowhere to rest
or grasp onto
and yet there is rest

The sky abides
yet it never rests.
Neither can we say that
the sky is not always at rest.
We talk about the sky
as if it were something
as if it actually exists -
and yet we cannot say that
the sky does not exist.
The sky is nothing but
coming and going.

Everything is perfectly spontaneous.
The coming and going arise mutually
instantaneously.
If the true I is asleep
you will miss the point entirely
and you will continue to dwell
in the world of opposites.

So see the two as one
and the one as empty
and be liberated
within the world of duality.

At first it seems
as if begoing follows becoming.
But look even closer
and you will see
that there are only
flashes of lightning
illuminating the empty sky.

Life and death
becoming and begoing
are only words.
In order to save your life
you must see that you die
instantaneously
moment to moment
instant to instant.

Now where are you going to abide?
And where are you not abiding already?

Indeed there is nowhere
to rest your head
and there is nothing but rest.
So let go of all ideas
about permanence and impermanence
about cause and effect
and about no cause and no effect.
All such notions are dualistic concepts.

The Truth of what you are
is completely beyond all duality
and all notions of non-duality,
and yet it includes duality
and non-duality alike.
Like an ocean
that is both waves and stillness
and yet un-definable
as waves or stillness.

The truth of being
cannot be grasped by ideas
or experiences.
Both waves and stillness
are the manifest activity
or your own self.
But self cannot be defined
by its activity
nor by its non-activity.
The truth is
all-transcendent
ungraspable, all-inclusive
and closer than your own skin.

A single thought about it
obscures its essence.
The perfume of true life
is right in your nose.
There is nothing you can do
to perceive it
and yet you must do something.
I say:
Rest and be taken.
Rest and be taken.

~ Adyashanti: My Secret is Silence: Poetry and Sayings of Adyashanti

To read more poems:
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/A/Adyashanti /index.htm#PoemList

http://www.adyashanti.org

The ULTIMATE, ULTIMATE, ULTIMATE Secret of Existence!

Jeff Foster - http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com

Another Great Video from Benjamin Smythe

Who Are You?

“It really doesn’t matter.
Here goes nothing.
It will be interesting to see what happens.”

~ Sloan Wilson – The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

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I mostly do not write on my own blog, because I figure everything that needs to be said has already been said a million times, and why add to the cacophony? But I’ve just come out of a rather intensive self-imposed retreat, and there is something that wishes to explore its findings to itself. After all, there’s only this One Thing talking to itself all the time, attempting to get its own attention, wanting to remind itself of its true nature.

There’s only one story ever told and it goes like this: first, there is harmony, then chaos ensues, and then there is a successful (or sometimes unsuccessful) attempt to resolve the chaos in order to return to harmony. All stories have this same central theme, though the details vary.

This is the story that all of Life is telling itself, as it attempts to resolve the appearance of separation. What has been forgotten is why this world was created in the first place.

Consider a vast nothingness, an infinite womb, and then out of nowhere, an idea, a spark of creativity appears, the possibility of nothing knowing itself as something. The essence of this appearance could be called love, this sudden desire for nothing to become something and look upon itself. And Life begins to multiply upon itself in its vastness and create more and more diverse and fantastic depictions of itself.

Fast forward to this moment. The experiment has turned in on itself, so successful in its degrees of otherness that it no longer recognizes itself as one. The story has become so vast and complex that the One is completely distracted from the only story, which is the one that returns it to harmony. This is your story. Everything and everyone who you seek out to help you resolve your lack of harmony, every teacher, book, workshop, whatever, is you looking in a mirror to find yourself. The trick is to turn around and look at who is looking.

The battles within and without are an attempt to continue the story of separation. Why? Why do you want to continue to live a fragmented version of yourself? You say you want wholeness and healing, peace and freedom, love and harmony, but who are you kidding? If you truly wanted it you would have it. You are still somewhat entertained by all the craziness and chaos, admit it. All the loneliness, all the suffering, all the pathos, you’re making it up as you go along.

On the other hand, this story has been played out in so many versions over the millennia, in some ways it has become tiresome and rather ho-hum. Really, I mean how much more violence and mayhem, the self against the self, this holding onto a concept of otherness, how much longer do you want to hold out? Aren’t you tired of it all? Maybe not…..

Because the ET’s might come, and the Ascended Masters will show up, and there will be heaven on earth, and no more struggle for survival, and yada, yada, yada. More story, keep it going, play some more. That’s OK. It’s all perfect. It’s your story (satori).

Well, in my version of this story, the One finally recognizes itself as Not Two, never was never will be. And in the final gazing, One into the eyes of the One, the love is so huge and tremendous that it bursts the boundaries of creation and dissolves back into absolute Nothingness from which it all arose in the first place. End of story. Wow!

And then I woke up this morning, and the cats were meowing to get in, and the phone rang, and I made coffee, and I sat and watched the wind blow the leaves and branches of this giant tree in my backyard, and this idea began to form in my brain as to writing something on my blog. Go figure.

So will this little missive change anything? Probably not. Maybe. I think there are only two people in the entire known Universe who read this thing, who knows?. In turning to look upon what is inherently true in one's consciousness, perhaps what arises is a sense of responsibility for everything, a realization that outside is only a projection of what has become unacceptable inside, and even the very idea of inside and outside becomes erroneous. The enemy is whatever you have said no to. Neti, neti, not this, not that. But how can that be, when everything that exists is you? Everything! Even the idea of an enemy exists because we wish to annihilate whatever stands in the way of Oneness, we just made the mistake of thinking it was out there! As if that were possible…

Every conflict is the resurrecting of the same story, over and over, countless scenarios, one after the other, always seeking something more. I guess resting in sublime contentment seems rather blasé in comparison. But not for this one. I can’t seem to find anything that wants something other than what’s right here. The addictions have fallen away. I know where it all leads. It no longer interests me. My attention keeps turning to what is looking through these eyes and stopping there. Even food is a distraction. I don’t even care why this is so. This questioner has no questions left.

There is still a narrative playing in this mind, but it is its own merry-go-round of entertainment, slowly winding down because the ticket booth is closed. It’s closing in on itself, no where to go but a leap into the void. Like a caged animal it paces, the mind seeking some escape, but all the avenues are shut down and there’s no place left to land.

Why am I writing this? The invitation is for all parts of myself to enter this exploration of what has always been and forever will be the only truth, and that is YOU ARE IT!

Got it? Good.

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One of the strange properties of being me
is I don’t want to be ignored,
but I don’t want to be seen either.
Sometimes I am my only witness.
I AM a mirror within which
I reflect myself;
my own mind and consciousness
a vast and fascinating playground
where I dance for myself
and engage myself
in scintillating conversation.

I argue with my ghostly
and mostly imaginary past,
shaking my fist at the inner critic
who boasted its way
into becoming a feature of my brain,
and while I drag my neural sea
for the anchoring point,
and practice eroding new paths
into presently pristine fields,
my own voice narrates.
Each corner turned, each breath taken,
each mundane and extraordinary task is
noted, verified, examined, reiterated,
some flushed, some filed,
some deified, others exiled.
It is constant,
my rambling and eloquent
talk with myself.

If I found a way
to package, publish, and exhibit
this artistic performance and
masterpiece of life,
I would be no different
than all the other needy, greedy
children crying for worldly attention,
and I would miss the lone applause
that only I can gift myself.
I would forget that
in closing my outer eyes
I see everything,
have everything,
am everything,
and opening them again
just brings into sharp focus
the state of the romantic interlude
I’m having with me.

I remember now.
The rest doesn’t matter.
Solid things are more ephemeral than
soap bubbles
when the attention shifts.
Only looking closely
makes it real and tangible,
brings it to human life,
a form through which I may
caress my skin,
kiss my lips and breasts,
and make my heart pound wildly
until passion, exhausted,
closes again my eyes,
and I surrender, smiling,
into luxurious sleep.

I dream of new ways to awaken
while the old familiar faces/places
appear once again on the horizon,
imploring me to continue my line of thought
for one more day.

I comply.
If only to follow the story line
and take in the surprise ending.
For as many things I think I know
I don’t.
As far as I may have come,
every point in eternity is
a beginning place.
I might as well be a child forever,
in wonderment at my own fingers
and the timeless pace of snails.
Today I am fresh as tears,
watching from the center of everything,
and no one is here but me.

~ Suzen

Authentic Inquiry

What is inquiry, really? This is a good question. And like most really good questions, it is very basic. Authentic inquiry is allowing yourself to care, to take on the weightless burden of caring. Everyone knows what it’s like to inquire out of intellectual interest—asking for the sake of asking or because you think you should. This is not caring. When you care about something, it gets inside of you. It gets inside the shell that keeps you from being affected or bothered, the shell that keeps anything really new from happening.

So in the beginning, to deeply inquire about anything, you have to care about it. You have to care enough to allow it to get inside that shell. What do you really care about? What pulls you into here and now, this minute? What is the most important thing to you? For real inquiry, it is important to be asking about something you sincerely care about. The question needs to be personal, not about a spiritual teaching or something that’s outside of your experience. It needs to be something that’s coming from the inside.

When you care, you care from the inside. Many people impose ideas from the outside upon themselves, but this isn’t inquiry. When you really care, you enter a love affair with what you care about. Sometimes it draws you into bliss, sometimes into confusion. You don’t know what to do. You don’t know where you are going. You feel a bit out of control. You’re letting this caring get under your skin. To find out that you care like this is the most important thing; otherwise you can spend your whole life caring about what someone else says you should care about.

Like many people, you may be afraid to find out how much you care because that caring could just steal you away. What is the one thing that will matter the most at the end of your life? Without it, you would say: “That’s what it was all about and I missed it.” If you had the best job, lots of money, the perfect lover, or whatever your ideal is, and suddenly your life was over, what would still be left undone? That’s what it’s all about.

When you find that kind of caring, inquiry has some power behind it. You also find your own inner integrity. You find something inside that’s stable. There’s a place inside you that is willing to be a little crazy—crazy enough to take inquiry seriously and hold nothing sacred. Holding nothing sacred means that nothing is assumed to be true and all of your assumptions are fair game. The more spiritual they are, the more they are fair game. Ultimately it is your most sacred and unquestioned assumptions about yourself, others, and life that are most important to question.

Many people find their spirituality taking them outward. They think they are going inward because they have heard the spiritual teaching, “Inquire and look within.” Meanwhile, they are out in the stars somewhere looking for someone else’s experience, looking for the right experience, or looking for the experience they believe they are supposed to have. This is spirituality going entirely in the wrong direction. Inquiry is a means of taking you back to yourself, back to your experience.

When inquiry is authentic, it brings you into the experience of here and now, bringing you to the full depth of it, pulling you into it. The question pulls you back into the mystery of your experience. “What am I?” takes you right back into the mystery. If your mind is honest, it knows it doesn’t have the answer. You ask, “What am I?” and instantly, there is silence. Your mind doesn’t know. And when it doesn’t know, there is an experience right here, right now, that is alive. You bump into nothingness inside—that no-thing, that absolute nothingness which your mind can’t know.

The answer does not come in the form of a description or phrase; it is a direct experience. And this experience, your livingness, always transcends any words or intellectual answer. In fact, the truth of your being is eternally transcending itself. As soon as it projects itself out as something, even as a profound insight, it has already transcended it. So eventually the inquiry wears itself out. You wear yourself out. You wear your ego self out. You wear your spiritual self out. You wear it all out. You’ve inquired yourself out of this whole thing, and you’re disappearing faster than you can put yourself together.

As Nisargadatta Maharaj said so brilliantly and beautifully, “The ultimate understanding is that there is no ultimate understanding.” When it’s in the head, it’s an impressive piece of understanding; when it’s in the heart, as the Buddha said, it’s extinguished. You find a living experience of being, empty of content, empty of you. This is where spiritual awakening begins. This is the living answer of authentic inquiry.

© Adyashanti 2007

http://www.adyashan ti.org/index. php?file= writings_ inner&writingid= 32

"The Heart Jewel of the Fortunate" Dudjom Rimpoche's Personal Advice on Dzogchen Praxis

"The Great Master of Oddiyana once said:
Don’t investigate the root of things,
Investigate the root of Mind!
Once the mind’s root has been found,
You’ll know one thing, yet all is thereby freed.
But if the root of Mind you fail to find,
You will know everything but nothing understand."

When you start to meditate on your mind, sit up with your body straight, allowing your breath to come and go naturally. Gaze into the space in front of you with eyes neither closed nor wide open. Think to yourself that for the sake of all beings who have been your mothers, you will watch awareness, the face of Samantabhadra. Pray strongly to your root teacher, who is inseparable from Padmasambhava, the Guru from Oddiyana, and then mingle your mind with his. Settle in a balanced, meditative state.

Once you are settled, however, you will not stay long in this empty, clear state of awareness. Your mind will start to move and become agitated. It will fidget and run here, there, and everywhere, like a monkey. What you are experiencing at this point is not the nature of the mind but only thoughts. If you stick with them and follow them, you will find yourself recalling all sorts of things, thinking about all sorts of needs, planning all sorts of activities. It is precisely this kind of mental activity that has hurled you into the dark ocean of samsara in the past, and there’s no doubt it will do so in the future. It would be so much better if you could cut through the ever spreading, black delusion of your thoughts.

What if you are able to break out of your chain of thoughts? What is awareness like? It is empty, limpid stunning, light, free, joyful! It is not something bounded or demarcated by its own set of attributes. There is nothing in the whole of samsara and nirvana that it does not embrace. From time without beginning, it is within us, inborn. We have never been without it, yet it is wholly outside the range of action, effort, and imagination.

But what, you will ask, is it like to recognize awareness, the face of rigpa? Although you experience it, you simply cannot describe it – it would be like a dumb man trying to describe his dreams! It is impossible to distinguish between yourself resting in awareness and the awareness you are experiencing. When you rest quite naturally, nakedly, in the boundless state of awareness, all those speedy, pestering thoughts that would not stay quiet even for an instant – all those memories, all those plans that cause you so much trouble – lose their power. They disappear in the spacious, cloudless sky of awareness. They shatter, collapse, vanish. All their strength is lost in awareness.

You actually have this awareness within you. It is the clear, naked wisdom of dharmakaya. But who can introduce you to it? On what should you take your stand? What should you be certain of? To begin with, it is your teacher who shows you the state of your awareness. And when you recognize it for yourself, it is then that you are introduced to your own nature. All the appearances of both samsara and nirvana are but the display of your own awareness; take your stand upon awareness alone. Just like the waves that rise up out of the sea and sink back into it, all thoughts that appear sink back into awareness. Be certain of their dissolution, and as a result you will find yourself in a state utterly devoid of both meditator and something meditated upon - completely beyond the meditating mind.

"Oh, in that case," you might think, "there’s no need for meditation." Well, I can assure you that there is a need! The mere recognition of awareness will not liberate you. Throughout your lives from beginningless time, you have been enveloped in false beliefs and deluded habits. From then till now you have spent every moment as a miserable, pathetic slave of your thoughts! And when you die, it’s not at all certain where you will go. You will follow your karma, and you will have to suffer. This is the reason why you must meditate, continuously preserving the sate of awareness you have been introduced to. The omniscient Longchenpa has said, "You may recognize your own nature, but if you do not meditate and get used to it, you will be like a baby left on a battlefield: you’ll be carried off by the enemy, the hostile army of your own thoughts!" In general terms, meditation means becoming famiIiar with the state of resting in the primordial uncontrived nature, through being spontaneously, naturally, constantly mindful. It means getting used to leaving the state of awareness alone, divested of all distraction and clinging.

How do we get used to remaining in the nature of the mind? When thoughts come while you are meditating, let them come; there’s no need to regard them as your enemies. When they arise, relax in their arising. On the other hand, if they don’s arise, don’t be nervously wondering whether or not they will. Just rest in their absence. If big, well-defined thoughts suddenly appear during your meditation, it is easy to recognize them. But when slight, subtle movements occur, it is hard to realize that they are there until much later. This is what we call namtok wogyu, the undercurrent of mental wandering. This is the thief of your meditation, so it is important for you to keep a close watch. If you can be constantly mindful, both in meditation and afterward, when you are eating, sleeping, walking, or sitting, that’s it – you’ve got it right!

"The great master Guru Rinpoche has said:
A hundred things may be explained, a thousand told,
But one thing only should you grasp.
Know one thing and everything is freed-
Remain within your inner nature, your awareness!"

It is also said that if you do not meditate, you will not gain certainty: if you do, you will. But what sort of certainty? If you meditate with a strong, joyful endeavor, signs will appear showing that you have become used to staying in your nature. The fierce, tight clinging that you have to dualistically experienced phenomena will gradually loosen up, and your obsession with happiness and suffering, hopes and fears, and so on, will slowly weaken. Your devotion to the teacher and your sincere trust in his instructions will grow. After a time, your tense, dualistic attitudes will evaporate and you will get to the point where gold and pebbles, food and filth, gods and demons, virtue and nonvirtue, are all the same for you-you’ll be at a loss to choose between paradise and hell! But until you reach that point (while you are still caught in the experiences of dualistic perception), virtue and nonvirtue, buddhafields and hells, happiness and pain, actions and their results – all this is reality for you. As the Great Guru has said, "My view is higher than the sky, but my attention to actions and their results is finer than flour."

So don’t go around claiming to be some great Dzogchen meditator when in fact you are nothing but a farting lout, stinking of alcohol and rank with lust!

It is essential for you to have a stable foundation of pure devotion and samaya, together with a strong, joyful endeavor that is well balanced, neither too tense nor too loose. If you are able to meditate, completely turning aside from the activities and concerns of this life, it is certain that you will gain the extraordinary qualities of the profound path of Dzogchen. Why wait for future lives? You can capture the primordial citadel right now, in the present.

This advice is the very blood of my heart. Hold it close and never let it go!

~ Taken from Counsels from My Heart by Dudjom Rinpoche, Chapter 7
Shambhala: Boston, 2001

(Thank you, Jeannie!)

The Agony of the Search - Benjamin Smythe

The search is over. You can see it in his eyes.

http://benjamintsmythe.com

Nothing To Be Gained From Enlightenment

Where can I find a man who has forgotten words?
He is the one I would like to talk to.

~ Chuang Tzu

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Wanting to reform the world without discovering one's true self is like trying to cover the world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes.

~ Ramana Maharshi

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"Popularity among the soundly asleep may not be the best criterion by which to judge a method for waking up."

~ Jed McKenna

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"Speaking of Self-realization is a delusion. It is only because people have been under the delusion that the non-Self is the Self and the unreal the Real that they have to be weaned out of it by the other delusion called Self-realization; because actually the Self always is the Self and there is no such thing as realizing it."

~ Ramana Maharshi

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Nothing is Gained with Enlightenment

I once lived in an apartment so small I had to step outside into the adjacent hallway to open my oven door. There was room only for a bed, a radio, and a cardboard carton of books. I kept my clothes in a closet down the hall. Even in this confined space, there was housework to be done. Indeed, the demands of maintenance follow us wherever we find ourselves, from palaces to prison cells.

The Italian poet Cesare Pavese wrote in his journal that we never remember days, we remember only moments. And Zen teachers tell us that this moment is the only one we’ll ever have. Perhaps this is a better way of looking at enlightenment. It’s not achieving or gathering something. Nor is it losing or overcoming something else. It’s simply stepping outside of the room you’re in and allowing the oven door to open. It’s checking the ceiling overhead and cleaning up the spills beneath your feet.

~ Gary Thorp, "The Dust Beyond the Cushion"

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"In Kisagata,
The flowering cherry trees
Vanish under waves ---
Until an old fisherman
Rows out across blossoms.

Whatever it is,
I cannot understand it,
Although gratitude
Stubbornly overcomes me
Until I'm reduced to tears.

My final desire ---
That I be allowed to die
Under flowering cherries,
On the fifteenth evening
Of the second month."

~ Saigyo, "The Poetry of Zen"

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So really what it comes down to, it's God. Wherever you look, it's God appearing as this, that, and what you really love and appreciate in each form is the divine formless out of which each form comes. But to be able to sense that you have to sense it in yourself first. And that is seeing the beauty in everything, that's really what it means.

~ Eckhart Tolle

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A Message from Space

Everything that happens is the message:
you read an event and be one and wait,
like breasting a wave, all the while knowing
by living, though not knowing how to live.

Or workers built an antenna -- a dish
aimed at stars -- and they themselves are its message,
crawling in and out, being worlds that loom,
dot-dash, and sirens, and sustaining beams.

And sometimes no one is calling but we turn up
eye and ear -- suddenly we fall into
sound before it begins, the breathing
so still it waits there under the breath --

And then the green of leaves calls out, hills
where they wait or turn, clouds in their frenzied
stillness unfolding their careful words:
"Everything counts. The message is the world."

~ William Stafford

What is Beyond Consciousness?

The water of the mind, how clear it is!
Gazing at it, the boundaries are invisible.
But as soon as even a slight thought arises,
ten thousand images crowd it.
Attach to them, and they become real.
Be carried by them, and it will be difficult to return.
How painful to see a person trapped in the ten-fold delusions.

~Ryokan

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Watch yourself closely and you will see that whatever be the content of consciousness, the witnessing of it does not depend on the content. Awareness is itself and does not change with the event. The event may be pleasant or unpleasant, minor or important, awareness is the same. Take note of the peculiar nature of pure awareness, its natural self-identity, without the least trace of self-consciousness, and go to the root of it and you will soon realize that awareness is your true nature, and nothing you may be aware of, you can call your own.

When the content is viewed without likes and dislikes, the consciousness of it is awareness. But still there is a difference between awareness as reflected in consciousness and pure awareness beyond consciousness. Reflected awareness, the sense "I am aware" is the witness, while pure awareness is the essence of reality. Reflection of the sun in a drop of water is a reflection of the sun, no doubt, but not the sun itself. Between awareness reflected in consciousness as the witness and pure awareness there is a gap, which the mind cannot cross.

~Sri Nisargadatta

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The next time you feel extreme anger, anxiety, jealousy, or sadness, just notice each thought that is feeding that state. Let each thought fall away quickly, one after the other, like flashes of light. Then just rest with the full sensory and emotional experience in the body, without placing any agenda on it, without trying to think yourself out of it. In that moment, you stop mentally running from suffering.

~Scott Kiloby

~ ~ ~

Our personal viewpoints (self, other, world, duality) and impersonal viewpoints (no self, no other, no world, nonduality), are equal in that they arise and fall, leaving no trace. They only leave a trace if we follow one, thinking it is closer to truth or closer to our present experience. But nothing can bring us closer to our present experience. It's already here, appearing as the present viewpoint.

~Scott Kiloby

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Breath is Truth

Some people practice throughout their entire lives just by paying attention to breathing. Everything that is true about anything is true about breath: it's impermanent; it arises and it passes away. Yet if you didn't breathe, you would become uncomfortable; so then you would take in a big inhalation and feel comfortable again. But if you hold onto the breath, it's no longer
comfortable, so you have to breathe out again. All the time shifting, shifting.

Sylvia Boorstein

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POEMS by Alan Larus

Suddenly

Woke up in a play,
on a crooked way

Comedy from start
Much too big, my part
And in awe I am too small
Got a little light, that's all

Life's impossible to swallow
Like a closed door,
what may follow?
A coming oh so handily,
transformation of the alchemy.

I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.

http://www.ferryfee .com/bluesky/ Suddenly. html


In life to realise

At the end of winding road,
such a gift you gave to me
Tumbling down the mighty load,
in a white house by the sea

But my maker saved this spark
It is shining in the dark

Lesson learnt
Getting burnt,
where no shelter is

To the rays of bliss.

http://www.ferryfee .com/bluesky/ The_gift. htm

IN SILENCE

Be still
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
To speak your
Name.
Listen
To the living walls.
Who are you?
Who
Are you? Whose
Silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
Are you (as these stones
Are quiet). Do not
Think of what you are
Still less of
What you may one day be.
Rather
Be what you are (but who?) be
The unthinkable one
You do not know.

O be still, while
You are still alive,
And all things live around you
Speaking (I do not hear)
To your own being,
Speaking by the Unknown
That is in you and in themselves.
“I will try, like them
To be my own silence:
And this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
Burn, even the stones
They burn me. How can a man be still or
Listen to all things burning? How can he dare
To sit with them when
All their silence
Is on fire?”

From In the Dark Before Dawn, by Thomas Merton

http://www.innerdirections.org/journal/poetry/the-poetry-of-thomas-merton/

We are the Same One

If the only prayer your say in your entire life is
"thank you," that would suffice.

~ Meister Eckhart

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To Meet in the Play

I am officially no longer an 'Advaita teacher' or 'Nonduality teacher' - if, indeed, I ever was one. Life cannot be put into words, and however beautiful the words of Advaita/Nonduality are, they must be discarded in the end. I could never claim to be any sort of authority on this stuff. I will continue to speak, to sing my song to those who are open to listening, but gone is the need to adhere to any tradition, to use Advaita-speak to avoid real, authentic human engagement, to pretend that I am in any way more or less special than you, to kid you that I know more than you, to play the 'teacher' by refusing to meet you in the play, to stop listening to you because I see you as 'still stuck in the dream' or 'still a person'. This message is about love, in the true sense of the word - otherwise it is simply nihilism masquerading as freedom. The 'Advaita Police' reply 'Who cares?'. I say I do. I do.

~ Jeff Foster

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Getting enlightened is a great thing. I recommend it. But then what are you going to do? Are you going to love everybody and everything deeply and madly? If not, why bother with enlightenment. ..it would just be a
personal trip. Just go play the lottery...or take a lot of vacations...

~ Scott Kiloby

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Not knowing

I may not know my original face
but I know how to smile.
I may not know the recipe for the diameter of a circle
but I know how to cut a slice for a friend.
I may not be Mary or the Buddha
but I can be kind.
I may not be a diamond cutter
but I still long for rays of light
that reach the heart.
I may not be standing on the hill of skulls
but I know love when I see it.

~ Stephen Levine

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"...did any of your students ever become enlightened? "
"Sure. many of them"
"How can you tell?"
"Easy. They stop following me or anyone else, do not talk ceaselessly about 'teachers', 'teachings', 'spirituality' and other such matters, and they go on with their lives free from fears and pretenses.

~ Nasrudin

YOU are the ALWAYS-SO - Cashify on You Tube

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Neither Nothing Nor Something - Robert Adams

What do you have to be to become nothing? What do you have to know to be nothing? To be nothing is a misnomer, for you make the nothing into some thing. If you're trying to be nothing, then you're trying to be something, aren't you? Because the nothing is something, that you're trying to become. Consequently, you should never strive to be nothing and you should never strive to be something, for they're both erroneous concepts. None of them really exist.

The question therefore is, "If something doesn't exist, and nothing doesn't exist, well what is?" And the answer is silence. Absolute silence. For the human mind and the human thinking, the human thoughts, can never comprehend what silence is. You try to put it into words, and you spoil it. There are no words that can interpret the silence, for when you go into the true silence, you go beyond nothing and something. Yet everyone has experienced this true silence who has gone beyond nothing and something, and appeared to have to first become something and nothing, in order to be silent.

There's something you have to know: No. 1. Nothing is as it appears. You have to feel this deep in your heart. Nothing in this whole universe is as it appears. So do not be fooled by appearances. You do not allow the appearance to get to you, to make you feel this way or that way, no matter what the appearance may be. You are to look at the appearance as you would look at a mirage. And this is scientific, for the appearance will change sooner or later anyway. Therefore when you feel something from an experience, it is subject to change. You'll not be the same again. This is why the average person keeps going up and down like a yo-yo. They respond to a condition, then the condition changes and they respond in a different way to the same condition, and this changes and you respond again to the condition. They keep responding again and again to what they see as a condition.

No. 2. Do not say that the world is maya, for if you say the world is maya, that's a concept you have. And this is a non-duality concept, but nevertheless it's a concept, for you're holding on to the fact that the world is maya. In reality maya does not exist. There is no maya. Therefore everything that appears to come from maya, must also not exist. Do you follow this?

Whatever you think does not exist, is a concept. It becomes a thing, something to hold on to. You go around saying, "Everything is maya, everything is maya, the universe does not exist." But that maya exists, and this is the biggest mistake you're making, for you think maya exists. What is maya? An illusion. To whom comes the illusion? To the one who believes maya as a concept, maya as a thing, a belief. In other words, everything that you believe up to this point is erroneous, and it should be dropped.

The same is true with the words of absolute reality, pure awareness, Brahman, sat-chit-ananda. These things become a safe haven for you, and they keep you back from your full realization, for you are holding on to these beliefs that there is absolute reality, there is sat-chit-ananda, there is nirvana. Where would these things come from except from your own mind? It is you who gave these things names. We have given names to something we do not understand. We call it reality. What is reality? Something that never changes. And the something that never changes, becomes a concept and you hold on to that.

Is it any wonder such few people are self-realized? Is it any wonder that certain people only are liberated, very few people liberated? For we have simply exchanged terms. We say the world does not exist but maya exists. We say everything comes from consciousness, everything comes from the absolute reality. We merely change words, change terms.

There is no absolute reality. There is no sat-chit-ananda. There is no Brahman. It is we who made these terms up, and we feel safe and secure by holding on to them. At one time we used to say, "God is with me." Now we say, "Consciousness is with me," or, "I am the absolute reality." We've just changed the names. That's all we've done.

No. 3 is: you are not even the silence, for as long as you can express the word silence, that's not it. You have to get to the place where you have absolutely nothing to hold on to, nothing to lean against. Even when Buddha said to take refuge in the Buddha, take refuge in the sangha, take refuge in the eight fold path, this again is a mistake. I'm not saying the Buddha made a mistake. What I'm saying is the reason he said this, is because he was speaking to ignorant people who had to hold on to something. But the Buddha realized there's nothing to hold on to. There never was anything to hold on to. Even when you’re told you're total freedom, the word freedom becomes a concept for you. As long as you can lean on to it, as long as you can hold on to it, and you feel good in it, it's a mistake.

Again, this is the reason so few people are self-realized. You're holding on to something. You're attached to something. Whether it's a teaching, or a person, or a satsang, or a sangha, you can never become free while you're attached to something.

So the question is, what shall I do? You do exactly what you're doing now, but do not think about it. This is the important point. Do not try to find some new profound teaching, that will give you new words, or new methods, or new rules and regulations. You merely do what you're doing now and you do not think about it, you do not attempt to analyze it, you do not think this teaching is higher than any other teaching. You leave yourself alone. When you learn to leave yourself alone, in body and in mind, you have arrived. Do not ask, "Where have I arrived? To what have I arrived?"

This spoils the whole thing. That's what I'm trying to explain to you. Do not look at something that I say, and attempt to analyze it, tear it apart, try to make something out of it, or take refuge in it. Just be. Be neither this nor that.

If you were only able to do what I tell you, you would immediately feel a tremendous happiness, a tremendous bliss inside of you. You would feel a tremendous joy welling up within yourself. This happiness, this bliss and this joy is your very nature. It has nothing to do with words, places or things. It is what you are when you let go of everything that you've been holding on to.

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