Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Oneness lens..


 









A Oneness lens

In its stories

Sees apparent separation..

Stories are Oneness

Stories fill volumes

Religious stories 

Political stories 

Personal stories are 

Oneness appearing

Empty and story-full..

Perhaps~~

With a resonance

A breakthrough 

I am..seeking..ends

Oneness seems ordinary...


Before and after sumptuous stories that seem to create a wow now.... but there is no one reading the story anymore as it writes itself... only in the story of oneness swallowing twoness swallowing oneness does it seem to appear that there is an awareness of aliveness, of awareness, of this underlying wow-ness... that seems to provide a backbeat to the symphony of all imaginary this and that. This rhythm of life dancing to a call and answer love song in the great divide, the Grand Canyon of early morning mists that seem to obscure colors but dissolve into a particular clarity of simply life doing itself looking and feeling like anything at all... all of this apparent happening marvelous beyond measure ...and although there are no selves or others or endless seas or vast undulating skies no you nor me nor love... this is not the end of love
...It is the beginning....Nancy Neithercut..

Saturday, December 25, 2021

What is happening...

 













The photo above

Seems as what is happening..

Memories arise

Of a decrepit truck

Left behind..but offering

Seasonal colors..

And a windstorm exposing

The grain of fallen trees..

Yet..what is happening is

My fingers flowing words

Appearing to contain what

Cannot be contained...

 

Friday, December 24, 2021

Beliefs, etc...Jed McKenna







 “All beliefs. All concepts. All thoughts. Yes, they’re all false; all bullshit. Of course they are. Not just religions and spiritual teachings, but all philosophies, all ideas, all opinions. If you’re going for the truth, you’re not taking any of them with you. Nothing that says two, not one, survives.”

- Jed McKenna

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

This is empty fullness...Jim Newman

 














“This is empty fullness. The “me” is felt as “special” when the me collapses there is “ordinariness”, no 'specialness'…there is more naturalness, more “evenness”. There is no right way or wrong way about anything…the me is constantly tortured by what should be. When the me falls away, it is recognized that nothing needs to be done, nothing needs to happen. When the dream collapses, it is recognized that there never was a “story” , a “life”, a “me”. It is recognized that there never was a beginning or an ending, The me is so thin and some people hear this message and it just falls away, like in The Wizard of Oz…it is realized that it is a big joke! It seems a crescendo is building and building, the me is building, nothing is working, looking for happiness, accumulating things, contentment won’t come, twenty years of meditation is for naught and the “path” seems to keep one buried in the me, goals, all of it, keeps the me alive because me does not want to die."

Jim Newman~

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Edges appear...












Edges appear

As what is happening..

Seeming as differences

Dividing no-thing..

Sharp and soft

As beauty displays..

And deceiving when

Edges assert

And seem to take leave

From what is happening...

Christmas lights..

 
















Tuesday, December 14, 2021

Seekers..Miranda Warren..


 












Someone asked why seekers seem so desperate to find enlightenment.
Separation hurts. Seeking (not just spiritual, but for love, security, career, acceptance, beauty, all the idols of culture) hurts.
One day you hear someone who seems to have escaped that. Why would you not want it, even if what you imagine is not what it is?
Most of the happiest seeming people I've known in the culture, with great jobs, families, homes, still worry: they could lose their job, their kids could go astray, the spouse could have an affair. It's a life of contentment with a constant undercurrent of fear and anxiety.
No wonder people seek, and no wonder many would be willing to trade their life for the peace sages seem to possess.
I'm always surprised when sages say seekers wouldn't want this if they knew what it really was. Many seekers may not know what enlightenment really is, but yes, they do want it.
Many seekers would go through hell just to find a sense of ease and peace they have never experienced. Of course, there is the part where it won't be them that gets to experience it, but many are so desperate they love the idea of losing the self they already feel is unworthy and depressed and filled with pain.
Unfortunately for them, if this happens, that old self doesn't get replaced with a new, enlightened self. This is the loss no one can envision when they project an enlightened future of bliss and peace.

~~Miranda Warren

Accidental...Dag Hammarskjold...


 


"This accidental
meeting of possibilities
calls itself I.

I ask: what am I doing here?
And, at once, this I
becomes unreal."

Dag Hammarskjöld (1905 - 1961) 
Markings

Sunday, December 12, 2021

Man remains...Nikola Tesla...

 














"When we speak of man, we have a conception of humanity as a whole, and before applying scientific methods to the investigation of his movement we must accept this as a physical fact. But can anyone doubt to-day that all the millions of individuals and all the innumerable types and characters constitute an entity, a unit? Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them. I cut myself in the finger, and it pains me: this finger is a part of me. I see a friend hurt, and it hurts me, too: my friend and I are one. And now I see stricken down an enemy, a lump of matter which, of all the lumps of matter in the universe, I care least for, and it still grieves me. Does this not prove that each of us is only part of a whole?

For ages this idea has been proclaimed in the consummately wise teachings of religion, probably not alone as a means of insuring peace and harmony among men, but as a deeply founded truth. The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one. Metaphysical proofs are, however, not the only ones which we are able to bring forth in support of this idea. Science, too, recognizes this connectedness of separate individuals, though not quite in the same sense as it admits that the suns, planets, and moons of a constellation are one body, and there can be no doubt that it will be experimentally confirmed in times to come, when our means and methods for investigating psychical and other states and phenomena shall have been brought to great perfection. Still more: this one human being lives on and on. The individual is ephemeral, races and nations come and pass away, but man remains. Therein lies the profound difference between the individual and the whole."

- Nikola Tesla (1856 - 1943)

The Problem of Increasing Human Energy 

Friday, December 10, 2021

Reply to Paul...

 












Dear Paul..

Here is my response to your request for comments on the book you are preparing. First, I
am in admiration of your writing excellence.  I thoroughly enjoyed what you have to say,
and can only offer my own responses to some of your observations of your life, which are
not suggestions but just another indication of how we all are different.

OS Chapter, "Original Sin" is your personal story, and  obviously seems quite real
and beyond question.  I think it will have high interest for many readers. Reminds me of
accounts of near death experiences and a subsequent desire to tell the world.  Seemingly 
forgotten sometimes is the fact that only by having the experience can one really appreciate 
the significance.  Others can only observe these testimonies as stories, adding interpretations 
of their own.  Recognizing stories as stories seems to be a bridge not often crossed. 
A bridge to No-where?  (As in religions?)

OS Chapter, "What's it All About," I found most engaging personally.  "All the world
is a stage," Shakespeare says, and we are all actors or characters.  It seems that this 
discovery is fundamental to the human race.  Until we realize ourselves as characters,
appearances, the separate individual will seem to carry the day..not realizing that this
solid belief is an illusion.  And this so-called recognition is not teachable.  It is Nothing
(No-thing) being a character named Paul.  It is a paradox. Not understandable by rational
means.  That seems to me to  relate to 3. What is this all about?  Your discussion of the
Gary Renard book expands on this theme, as does modern science, as you say, in supporting
a growing consensus of an illusory world. Science seems to be leading the way.  But again,
I would say that realizing this from a paradoxical perspective is paramount..apparently. 
If this perspective is appreciated only from a story/thought perspective, it certainly is 
important, but seemingly lacks the necessary staying power...

The "throw away world" is another thread of your discussion.  The fundamentalist idea that
some life after this one is all important, and so what happens here is not relevant, although
making our life as sinless as possible, is a prerequisite for later.  That is all separation
thinking, which has been a heavy in fundamentalist Christianity.  Should Christianity
graduate to a more holistic model, modeling Jesus' real teachings, some say that is the path 
away from the throw away world.  Perhaps even that is a bit naive.  Such a new look could
be translated into church doctrine, and public policy, without addressing the 
fundamental assumption of separation.  So, how do we process this assumption?  Likely, 
we don't, because we can't. Hopeless?  Perhaps so.  Hopelessness may be the key by 
highlighting the reality of not-knowing.  Which would also highlight our limited capacity 
to rationalize our way out. Which may bring about the revolution in perspective which
would recognize that we are already home!  We already are what we are looking for...which
is told as the cosmic joke.  OK, enough already!

The remaining part of this chapter seems familiar, scenarios with seemingly informed
possibilities.  From both science and spiritual writings, and a seeming convergence.  I would
just say that, for me, the use of language seems foremost in considering all of this.
Languages are based on the separation of subject/object, and knowing that, good writers
recognize that they are simply doing the best they can.  Perhaps what is not mentioned
often enough is the encountering of paradox at almost every turn.  The paradox seems to
put an end to the rational story, and cause the reader or writer to either search for another
path (which may be most common) or to dwell there and perhaps find a resonance with the 
not-knowing and mystery.  What may also end at that point is the notion of the individual
as a separate entity.  May be frightening!  No more "me?"  The separate entity (me, or
the ego if you like) may become desperate pulling one back from this precipice.  You
allude to this removal of the Me from being the doer in your examples of the Taos sculptor
and Philip Glass.  This orientation seems quite radical to some, but to others who have
resonated with the truth of it, it seems very ordinary.  

So, with reference to the three questions you pose at the beginning of this chapter, and 
considering how the questions are usually asked with the assumption of a reality based on
separation, there likely will never be satisfactory answers for anyone.  We apparently await
a shift in perception which shows the illusion of separation.  If and when that happens
the questions dissolve in the perspective called variously Oneness, No-thing, Awareness,
Consciousness, Wholeness, all of which are inadequate names.

OS Chapter, "Your Move," seems as a rant from time immemorial.  I feel that much of 
what I have said above relates here.  The key issue, for me, is the issue of separation.  
This issue is mythically storied in the Garden of Eden, in which the snake entices the
woman entices the man, and they are expelled to the East. The Prodigal Son expels 
himself from Home, and also goes out to the east of Eden.  Separation is generally not
questioned, and a search is undertaken, in a grand variety of forms, to restore the
wholeness of the home we left behind. This search, which is likely not even recognized 
as a search, seems synonymous with suffering.  And so, most people live lives of quiet 
desperation, as said Henry David Thoreau.  Separation is an illusion, but how can we
know?  Maybe the suffering is there to inform us we are already home.  Now there
is a paradox that makes no sense!  But it seems the crux of an unteachable solution,
for some.  It is probably most often called non duality, and the simplicity of it is found
in statements, such as No-thing being everything, or No-thing appearing as everything.
These statements, and others, point to the reality of oneness..the unity declaration
seems stark.  But intellectual processing is not resonance. Thus, the un-teachability.
And, the loss of the assumption of a separate individual can be frightening.  Susanne
Segal experienced a sudden recognition of her illusory separate self, and treated it
as a pathological condition for several years.  (Collision with the Infinite is the name
of her book).   I think it is an extreme example, but illustrative.  I find it interesting
that  young people these days are resonating with this message, which may be
an encouraging sign.  

So, I will end up by saying that all I have said in all of this rambling are responses 
(thoughts) triggered by various things you say in your writing. Thoughts are 
limited, so don't take anything seriously!

I will be first in line to buy your book, unless Robin elbows me out...😄

Charlie


Thursday, December 9, 2021

simply this brilliant immediacy...(Nancy Neithercut)

 













Nancy Neithercut
simply this brilliant immediacy
this obvious aliveness
un-contained
un fettered
un knowable
edgeless aliveness
without an outside or inside
'this' is not an it
all there is, is this
yet there is no this or that
nor more or other or better or next...
what can be said when every word seems to create separate things, like time dimension distinction causality
'this' does not arise from something like emptiness or nothingness or boundless energy... and does not go anywhere
there are no where's to go...
nor anyone to go there
yet this painted dreamscape of everything and nothing seems to appear, simultaneously self arising and self erasing, never actually existing as a thing
you can hold it or capture it or enter or escape....
you are an enchantment of words as are all things...

Slowly...Nancy Neithercut...

 













Slowly 

Slowly 

Slowly 

Without moving

Or standing still

Love opens its wings

And swallows you 

She is rough and tender

Her teeth are beautiful slender knives

Eviscerating all ideas of life 

Of love...

She sings 

Without words 

Or melody 

Or silence...

When you look in the mirror

You can see her empty eyes

When I look at you 

I recognize her beauty

Our eyes are filled with each other’s tears 

And we waltz her shinning shadow

Light into light 

Dark into dark

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

This season..

 










This season..

The season may shade

The freedom of equality..

Old stories are celebrated

And not told as stories..

Beliefs are emboldened

Midst the decorations and

Glaring gatherings..

The believed extraordinary

Seems to shine in triumph

Over the already free 

Ordinary...


Thursday, December 2, 2021

Radical equality..


 














Radical equality..

Called radical

Because of acculturated

And seemingly solid 

Assumptions of difference..

Although

Difference of appearance

Seems indisputable

Emptiness is intuited

Of each difference..

If so

Everything is empty..

That feels like 

Equality...



Saturday, November 27, 2021

Conversations on this message..

 



























Conversations on this message
Are exchanges of meaning about
A message with no meaning..
In this manner religion seeds are
Planted distorting 
Full-on simplicity by 
Word fences and adherents..
Departure from conversations 
May be a healthful antidote..
Another may be an expansive
Stance of welcome to all
Conversations as already not 
Excluded..which Facebook
Would likely prefer...  😁

The brain...

 




















The brain..

Might a dream of
Separation be 
Found in a brain
Which objectifies 
What is seen even on
Cosmic scales..?
Or is the brain simply
An object appearing 
Among all those objects..?
Science reports finding a
Powerful machine owning
Astonishing feats..
Yet..after all is
Said and done
There remains
Not-knowing appearing as
All of these speculations
And questions..already
Arising for no one:
This simplicity 
And  freedom of
Not knowing 
What is happening...

Monday, November 22, 2021

Hope and Home...

 











Hope is expressed

In patience and struggle..

Seems a glimmer

Here and then gone

Midst all of that..

Home is timeless

Never not present

Yet not a thing..

Home paradoxically 

Appears

As patience and struggle

And hopelessness...




Sunday, November 21, 2021

Burst...

 
















Suddenly..

Such words try

To eliminate  

Appearing time..

Enter the dilemma:

Words and time

Seem inextricable..

Nevertheless

Nothing is a word..

Nothing as suddenly

Possibly resonates...

An offered gift...

 













The message

Flies in the face

Of logic..

Not/two..appearing

Not appearing as 2..

Makes no sense

But a paradoxical

Resonance is

Apparently

An offered gift...


Friday, November 19, 2021

Sameness/difference resonating...

 











Sameness of

Different places

And times

Appearances all..

No-thing appearing..

A great relaxation

Resonating..

Thoughts of time wasted

Or of accomplishment

Appearing smoothly..

History's depictions

Alongside

A bird chirping..

Fruits of 

Sameness/difference

Resonating...

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Copper leaves...

 
















They arise as copper

With veins of memory..

The end of an apparent

Path from springtime..

Emptiness in full flower 

Appearing as leaves..

Simultaneously rendering 

The indescribable beauty

Of birth and death...

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

A Creed

 










Resonating with a Holy Emptiness, and the narratives of  such as Jesus, 

Who apparently shifted an assumed separation reality to a new perspective of

Emptiness (Heaven) appearing as everything, including judgments. which,

As emptiness, appear as the beauty of separation...


Apostles Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord, ... He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

Objects and space...


 














Objects appear

Space surrounding..

We are educated

Thusly

And assume..

To hear otherwise

May give pause

But..no..brings

Apparent

Incompletion

Conformance

And violence..

Life-long often..

And

Simultaneously

Perfect

Complete and

Empty

Already...


Monday, November 15, 2021

No time...


 









No time

Birth and death

And life's dances

Appear

Paradoxically in

No time..

A dissonance to an

Inquiring mind

Moving to this

Darkening edge..

Yet

This time may be

Propitious 

With Peace as

No time...


Thursday, November 11, 2021

This communication...


 











This communication

Not sent or received

Can resonate..

Seeming to resonate 

When questions

Never seem answered..

A spontaneous ending  

Of sender and receiver

As paradoxical messages

Melt the need for

More Q & A...

Stillness..Wallace Stevens

 










Stillness

I lost myself
one dark December night,
when the white winter trees
were covered with snow
and the leafless boughs
were undefined.
I lost myself that night
yet I, unnamed, remained.
If you lose yourself
on a night like this,
when the white winter trees
are covered with snow
and the leafless boughs
are undefined,
it won't matter at all,
so never mind,
you will still be,
as you always were,
the nameless stillness,
being.

~~Wallace Stevens

Monday, November 8, 2021

Death and dying...(Jean Klein)

 
















Alice Ouzounian posted (Facebook)

“The real meaning of death and dying is completely different from that usually understood by these words. When one knows the continuum that is life, all perceptions (of which our body is but one) are felt as appearing and disappearing in awareness or consciousness.
This appearing and disappearing is the real meaning of birth and death. We are born every moment a thought or sensation appears and we die every moment the concept or percept disappears.
We die every evening before going to sleep, and we are born every morning. So we need to become acquainted with this dying, this letting-go of the objective world.
We should ask ourselves in our most profound intimacy: What is there before the thought appears? What is there when the thought disappears?
What is there before the body goes to sleep and before it wakes up?
When we observe closely, we will find, not the absence we took for granted, but a presence, a presence that cannot, however, be objectified.
It is too near, it is our nearest. If we really know how to go to sleep we will know how to die.
We will be already familiar with dying, already familiar with the dissolution of the born.
To do this, one must, before going to sleep, lay aside all qualifications.
We must become as naked psychologically as we are physically.
This means that we put aside all opinions, thoughts, worries, ideas before we sleep. It is an offering of all that we are not.
In letting go there is an expansion of mind and body and in all expansion is the fore-feeling of reality, our globality. This should be done each time we sleep until we find that, before the body wakes up in the morning, we are. Presence is already there.”
— The Book of Listening by Jean Klein, volume 3, page 67.

Wednesday, November 3, 2021

Paradoxical Portals..

 



paradoxical portals..

paradoxes 

make no sense

seem as roadblocks 

to the inquiring mind

yet are invitations

to linger and 

perhaps to

resonate as the

portal appears

and disappears 

simultaneously

  as the mystery of

This




Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Rejection of what seems dual..

 











Glimpses of the 

So called non-dual

Sometimes brings rejection of

What seems duaL.

Along with judgements of 

Those seemingly immersed

In the dual..


Hungering for the message:

No non-dual..No dual..

All are appearances arising

As This...

Photos and appearances...

 










Taking photos 

Appearing 

thoughts and

Scenes

All of of it

Immediately this..

Clicking and  clicker 

Simultaneously appear

As  "CLICK..."


Thursday, October 28, 2021

Nowhere...

 












I am nowhere..

It sounds

Paradoxical

Mysterious..

What seems known is
My appearance here
In the universe beside
You and those others..
Yet I search for

Nowhere which

Obviously

Can’t be found..
Paradoxical
Until nowhere is

Unexplainably

Everywhere and 

Already obvious

To no one...


Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Impersonal communication...Richard Sylvester




 “The Box With The Key Locked Inside” - Richard Sylvester~

 “It’s important to understand that this communication is completely impersonal. The seeing of liberation has nothing to do with the person. If there’s anybody here who feels that this is about the possibility of personal liberation or enlightenment, then as long as you’ve paid, it’s probably best that you leave right now.

 It’s very difficult for the mind to get hold of this point about impersonality. What is being communicated this afternoon is about something which is ‘seen’ but it’s not seen by any individual. So there’s no suggestion here that you or I can become liberated, enlightened or self-realized. Where there is a concept or a feeling that this is personal, the individual who’s communicating this will usually be suggesting that they can do something about it for you, that they can somehow elevate you to a state that they have attained. Perhaps they can do this by divine transmission through you touching their holy feet, or drinking their bottled bathwater or worse, or they may offer to teach you spiritual techniques. We could practice spiritual techniques here but they wouldn’t have anything to do with liberation.

 As soon as this message gets caught up with the idea that it is somehow personal and you have a guru-devotee relationship developing, you get a collusion set up. You have someone who feels that they would like to become enlightened going to a teacher who offers them that. The teacher says “Yes, I have achieved enlightenment and I can give that to you. Come and sit at my feet, drink my bathwater, do my meditation techniques.” You get a collusion between the devotee who wants to find an enlightened master and the teacher who wishes to present themselves as an enlightened master. They get together and pump each other up and that is when things tend to become very tricky. If we think that we can become enlightened, we may look for someone who is already enlightened who can somehow transfer their energy to us, whether through shaktipat or through some other means. So this is a totally impersonal seeing. Although liberation may be seen, it is not seen by a person. Although separation can be seen through, it is not seen through by a person. A character may be sitting in this chair reporting on this but that’s as close as we can get in language.

 There is always impersonality but it is covered over by the sense of being an individual. Liberation is seen not when impersonality is gained but when the individual is lost.

 This message is beyond mind or concepts or understanding. All we can do here is attempt to describe something and it will always be a failed attempt. We can share ideas about non-duality and somebody might go out of here having a very good understanding of it but that will have nothing to do with the seeing of non-duality. And there might be somebody down the road sitting in Hyde Park sunbathing this afternoon, who may have no ideas whatsoever about non-duality and yet suddenly there may simply be being. There may simply be sitting in Hyde Park but no one who is sitting.

 Being is all that we are talking about today, simply being.

 All I can offer this afternoon is to try to point towards liberation. We can never get there in words, we can’t even get close, but we can point towards the simple reality of what is, the simple reality of being. Let’s acknowledge that all we can do here is tell a story, just as we’re always telling stories about different aspects of being. Everything that we tell ourselves about the world and the purpose that we have in the world is a story. We tend to feel powerfully that we do have a purpose for being here. “Well, there must be something more than simply this! There just has to be! All of this palaver! All of these memories! All of this constant unreeling of thoughts! It must all be about something!” Our existence seems to have meaning and yet it is a story.

'The Book of No one'


The Book of No One “ – Richard Sylvester~

Q:You mentioned the confusion of cause and effect. Is liberation an uncaused event? 

Richard: Everything is uncaused. Everything spontaneously arises and falls away. This mug of tea is uncaused. It’s a spontaneous mug of tea. But the mind looks for causation. When I talk about the confusion of cause and effect, I mean that this occurs within the story, within the dream of a person looking for a spiritual path. That’s where cause and effect get confused. One of the easiest ways to see that there really is no cause is to notice how a thought arises and falls away. And then how another thought comes and falls away. Thoughts arise without cause or significance, but if there’s a person there, that person may give those thoughts great significance.

 That sounds like a technique to me. (Laughing)

 Notice thoughts. No, It’s not a technique. That’s just how you heard it. It won’t do you or anybody else any good. It’s just a way of trying to explain that everything is uncaused. After all, this chair seems very solid so we may think “How can that be uncaused? Somebody made that chair.” I’m just suggesting that it may be easier to notice that thoughts are uncaused. It’s possible that, as you sit here, there may be a moment of no mental activity. Then it may be noticed that, totally uncaused, the next thought comes. That’s not a technique. It won’t get you anywhere.

 No one’s here to notice it? 

No one’s here to notice it and no one can get anywhere by noticing it.

 Certain people think God caused it. 

Some people do, yes.

 That’s a very attractive story. It makes sense to millions of people. But in a way, what does seeing that this is uncaused change? There is only Oneness and Oneness contains crap gurus, uncaused chairs and lots of stories.

 I feel like judging lots of things because I know they’re crap, but on the other hand I don’t want to judge them because they’re all part of Oneness.

 There’s nothing wrong with judging. You say “I don’t want to judge” and that’s fine. But judging is just part of Oneness.

 I’m very judgmental. That’s what I wanted to hear.

 Are you happy now? (Laughter)

 Yes, I feel better now.

 You’ve got some ‘faults’. If we’re going to start listing my faults we’ll be here for hours. This particular personality can be highly judgmental, but I wouldn’t say that being judgmental is a fault. But remember that this communication has nothing to do with this character except for its flavor. I need to make some compromise with the story. I can’t live my daily life without compromising with the story. Your daily life is already simply being lived. You have never lived your daily life.

 I’m a passive recipient of life? Life is living through me?

 Of course. It may seem that you are doing something, but life is just living through you.

 But I have to compromise in the story because I can’t live life thinking everything is uncaused.

 Why not? Do you feel your life would stop if you didn’t compromise with that? It wouldn’t.

 But sometimes people think that it would.

 No, it’s nothing like that with me.

 But why do you call it a story?

 Words are difficult, but the word ‘story’ is an attempt to acknowledge that there does seem to be something going on. Phenomena do seem to arise. Saying that it’s a story, or a dream, or an appearance, is a way of trying to acknowledge that it’s both real and not real. Just as nothing is either permanent or transient, we could also say that everything is both real and unreal. It’s real in the sense that it does apparently arise. There’s no doubt about that. But it’s unreal in the sense that it’s seen in liberation that nothing has ever happened, nothing will ever happen and nothing is happening right now. There is also no ‘right now’ in which anything can happen. That’s why I call it a story, a dream, maya, a game, a play, an appearance. These are all words that try to express the perception that there appears to be something and yet there is only nothing.

 The thought of death is very disturbing, though not so much when it’s the death of somebody I don’t know. Death seems to put me very much in touch with what you’re talking about. I can’t explain that intellectually but it’s a very clear sensation. 

Our own death absolutely confronts us with the reality that this is a story. Other people’s deaths can also confront us with that. It is precisely the existence of death in the dream that makes so many of us make up these wild, wild stories about the things that must be achieved and the heavens that must be aimed for. For a person, death is quite a challenge, so to avoid contemplating its own annihilation, the mind makes up the most wonderful and bizarre stories about an entity that continues after death in some way. Nothing continues after death but that’s ok because nothing is continuing right now.”

Monday, October 25, 2021

Sunday, October 24, 2021

Oppositions exclaim..

 












Oppositions exclaim

Silently

Of separation's beauty..

Beauty appearing as This...

It's Obvious...(Lisa Lennon)

 












It's Obvious..

To no one

Or to me..?

Why not just Obvious..?

THIS is Obvious...

Lisa Lennon is the speaker.  She finds confusing 

the attribution of what is Obvious to a separate

subject, whether Me or No one...

(Lisa Lennon's chat with

Walter Driscoll appears

below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmtQpsrRUfI&t=3s

Saturday, October 23, 2021

Sound and fury...

 









“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.” 
― William Shakespeare, Macbeth