All Corners Else o' the Earth Let Liberty Make Use Of; Space Enough Have I in Such a Prison.

Some say it's fear that keeps the ego from seeing its own illusory nature. So much effort expended; so much passion felt; so much suffering endured...could it be that the drama of life has been all for nothing, just a mistaken belief onto which profound meaning and absolute significance has been gambled? It's dismaying, at the least, to find that everything once held sacred and all the reasons and motivations for life have been based on an erroneous assumption. Could it be, after all, that this energy of life is simply existence unto itself, for itself and by itself, borne of nothingness, and our identities are no more real than the mirage in the desert...the mirage that beckons, the mirage that promises sustenance, the mirage that fades upon close examination?

It's possible that fear isn't the only spontaneous reaction to the revelation of the unsubstantiality of the ego. All things, all energies, all responses are possible. The ego, relieved of its burden of mistaken identity, might feel joy upon letting go of itself, if that is, indeed, the mechanism of awakening. Relief is possible. Complete surrender is possible. Expansion into All is possible, the movement from a small thing to an unlimited one.

But know, fully, that whatever stories the mind weaves to make sense of boundless existence are just that - stories, fascinating tales full of comfortable hooks for the ego. Stories of subtle levels of enlightenment: just a guru, or a full satguru; simply self-realised, or fully liberated; awakened, or integrated; look them up, and find that many hierarchies of enlightenment have been catalogued, sorted, prioritised and conveniently arranged in order, from "a small glimpse of eternity" to "full liberation, without desire". "What enlightenment is like" can be, it seems, succinctly described, and this is the ideal, more or less: a perfect state of pure existence; no ideas, no thoughts, no desires, no needs, no changes, no doubts, no imagination; just being. No humanity. No passion. No desire to participate in the drama, although the drama is participated in, by no one, not by an ego, not by a mind, not by a persona or identity. This is the top level. This is the ultimate. This is what the ego can aspire to, if it will only give itself up. It starts with a revelation and ends, through an apparent slow process in time, with the death of the ego, still in the body, a stateless state, reached on a pathless path, the best of the best.

Question it; question it all; if there be mind, this is what mind excels at. And live it; live it all; the doubts, the passions, the lack of desire, the intimate, all-consuming longing, the pain of suffering and resistance. This is what is happening already. This is what is, whether there is mind and thought and concept or not. Whatever conclusions are arrived at (or dismissed), it is a movable feast. What is certain is that whatever is experienced, it is experienced just as it must be, for it is.


This clip, from Bullets Over Broadway, is a masterclass of the pull of the drama (or melodrama!) of the ego and its interactions with the world. And what a fine study of an ego...Dianne Wiest won an Oscar (Best Supporting Actress) for her interpretation of an aging grand dame of the theatre. Note how her immovable stance on the role in question does an about-face, seamlessly, when confronted with a few lines of well-constructed flattery...and the sweetly vulnerable revelation, right at the end. Egos are a lot of fun.

Thou Art Not Thyself; For Thou Exist'st on Many a Thousand Grains That Issue Out of Dust.

Sometimes what seems to happen in the course of a life and its story is a profound sense of emptiness. We are confronted with the proposition that our lives, our procreation, our work, and our beliefs are meaningless. Thus, our endeavours seem empty; our goals, superfluous. The mental anguish is intense. "An unexamined life is not worth living," said Socrates; so, afraid of the unconscious shuffle from task to task that can seem to dominate 21st century Western life, we examine our lives. It seems fruitful. False belief systems break down. We understand we have been telling ourselves fairy tales about our own character. Perhaps we are not the nice people we thought we were, or not nearly as bad as we thought. We question our judgement. We begin to see the conditioning that has seemingly influenced our choices, our avoidance, or our resistance. There may be devastating trauma to face, memories so vivid they come with sensory re-experiencing, or an unravelling of old assumptions...there may be a revelatory moment of comprehension, a veil lifting, revealing the untainted truth: time wasted may be seen to be time well spent; surface relationships revealed to be deeper than once believed; and a peeling back of the layers of defense against the world at large may be undertaken in earnest. Our egos are delighted to be engaged in such a worthy endeavour.

It is all happening now, however worthy and to the point it judged to be. Spare one of those heedless, unasked-for thoughts to the villains of the piece, just as indispensable as the heroes. Examined, unexamined, life is life. The mind's judgements about it all are neither worthy or unworthy, true or false; the energy of them is simply a miracle, and the ego that navigates it all is not "right" or "wrong". It is a gift, from the gift to the gift.


As this clip from I Heart Huckabees illustrates, there are a lot more fun ways to "still thought" than just sitting in a cramped lotus position for hours!

And Then, From Hour to Hour, We Rot and Rot; And Thereby Hangs a Tale.

Precipice

Grasping fingers save a possible fall.
Grab the sharpish grass, those small cuts martyr
Hands that gripped the slightest horn of hold
Ascending time's sheer wall.

Rise and look, feel fully, hear it well,
This spectacle, and please do not want more.
Nature out and in, the river, thoughtstream,
Panoramic heaven, sweeping hell.

Ask the bird; it wings, that is its task.
Ask the tree: its answer is to grow.
Ask the bending meadow, ask the river,
Ask yourself; your answer is to ask.

So again that anguish rises strong
Again such toil for nothing, wasted fray,
When with ease and ringing fear a sidestep -
A dive to where you live, there all along.

And diving, dive into the frightening others.
And falling, fall into the fruitless battles;
So flying, to the base, and to the home,
Spinning all the tales of all our brothers.

Plummet through conclusions swift dismissed.
Rocket through assumptions banished fully.
Plunge amongst rejected, blessed comfort,
Not the goal, or needful to resist.

The grassy meadow bed will do on landing.
Along can come what may, a bear, a wren,
Forever in repose, forever standing,
No more "to be" and nevermore "again".

-Suzanne Foxton


The clip is from Little House on the Prairie, which doubtless had a strong influence on my persona's formation as I was nearly obsessed with it age 10-12 or so. Unfortunately I couldn't find a shorter clip, so for the purposes of comedy, stop watching after Mrs. Olsen says "It's a miracle!". Sometimes, the story unfolds in such a way that only a push will get us over the edge.

This Shall End Without the Perdition of Souls.

The searching ends now. There is nothing to find but what is. There is nothing that needs to happen but what is happening. There is nothing new to know that will bring further revelation. There are so many fascinating, moving, absorbing stories which cannot yet be enjoyed, for they have too much of the burden of redemption upon them. Redemption is here, now, for there is only here and now, and infinite immediate possibility. You are not that small thing, the constructed identity named Felicity or Gerald, charged with the impossible tasks of perfect life or perfect love. You are what perfect life and perfect love emerges from; simple knowing, pure being, absolute awareness, bare sentience. That which looks, looks for itself, and it is everywhere; it is everything.

Perhaps you're caught up in a lot of analysis and value judgments; maybe there is nothing wrong with exactly what seems to be happening to you. It's fine to agonise, question, desire. It is what is. You can find some Zen or some other tradition to study if you'd really like to explore staying in a certain state of mind that resembles what imagination has deemed is true enlightenment; a state of peace and bliss, lightness, an unconcern with the state of life's story. But perhaps that's not necessary, or even, to a different perception, desirable. Even though life seems very painful,
uncomfortable and difficult, this turmoil is pretty natural and normal for a human being. It won't seem to last, no matter if you take conscious action or not. There is absolutely nothing wrong with how things are, how everything is, how you feel, what you feel, what you desire, and what you think, right here, right now. Relax. There's nothing wrong with you, just exactly as
you are.

All seekers pretty much either give up and live life, or end up finding that reality is exactly as it has always been; the obviousness of it is the punch of the "ah ha" thingy that some people seem to experience. Life as it arises, so rife with discontent, is exactly what was sought, and now seems full of contentment. We are in paradise. This is paradise. It always has been. Value judgments fall by the wayside.

The truth of reality is that nothing exists outside of awareness. Nothing actually exists without awareness' ability to apprehend itself. This void is the ultimate horror for the ego. A delicious, awesome, overwhelming horror that no ego can withstand.

You can't get it wrong. There are no mistakes. And everything, no matter how objectively different from another thing, is the same thing.


Paul Newman and Robert Redford, as Butch and Sundance, here give a good example of feeling the fear and doing it anyway...now off you go into the void!

It Hath Been Taught Us From The Primal State, That He Which Is Was Wish'd Until He Were.

All that needs to be known is already known. There is nothing mysterious about not being able to unravel the mystery. All that can be here, is here; all that is, is; all that is sought is exactly what is, right now, right here. The form of "what is"often seems lingered upon, pondered, sifted for meaning, and turned inside-out for sense. The sense is not found in the form, although the beauty is. The sense is found in the most fundamental whisper of existence; that there is any form at all, that there is any thing at all, is significance that defies all the screaming sub-sets of life's story: the search for purpose, the pursuit of truth, and the quest for resolution. It is so easy to get caught up in these pursuits, for the mind roves and wanders, endlessly unsatisfied; to engage in action, convinced the outcome is the point; and to fret over outcomes outside of the small sphere of influence all egos attempt to maintain. None of the particulars matter, none of them. What they might be is always open to interpretation, repression, mental blinders, transference, and all the other veils the mind puts onto what is. And yet this mind that wants things tidy, that wants it all figured out, that wants to put eternity into a box and call it mine, this mind and ego is what is, as well.

There is nothing more that needs to be known than what is here, all of existence, and the small yet miraculous tools that apprehend it. What you are is not some limited goal or some fleeting life, drowned in the vastness of the universe. That small manoeuvring creature that sometimes wears the mantle of Everything and is named John or Pervez or Maria is not what you are; you are that vast everything, or silent, unquantifiable nothing, and John or Pervez or Mary is an astonishing and extraordinary convenience. The vast cosmos is nothing as well; all of it depends upon its apprehension, by each apparent small parcel of consciousness. Just that it is, is enough. Just that anything is - that is the secret and purpose and meaning that is searched for by each small and seemingly cordoned-off nugget of awareness, and it is a privilege - for no one - to even have the opportunity to search. Many minds have collaborated to envision an ideal of humility and absolute acceptance as the perfect parameters within which to live a life. Happiness through service is lauded as the best way to be. Yet all ways to be are, and all perceptions perceive as they do, and that is just as it must be. What the perception seems to be, whatever that is, is the icing.


The clip is from Antz, a kid's film for grown-ups. "Z" is the narrative character, voiced by Woody Allen. His summing up is a perfect example of the story the ego tells itself when life, just as it is, somehow becomes enough.

And Often Up And Down My Sons Were Toss'd, For Me To Joy and Weep Their Gain And Loss.

Whatever it is that seems to be happening, it is not happening to you. What you are is simply what the happenings take form in. And it doesn't matter how "you" you seem, or how singular, or how special, or how committed, or how despairing, or how rich and full and whole - whatever the happening, the feeling, the thought, the action, even the world-rocking spiritual experience, it is simply an appearance, happening for no one, happening to no purpose other than to happen.

If this concept that the whole of life - all the convincing events, mindful conclusions, and deep feelings when confronted with tragedy or harmony - is just something that rises and falls in unending awareness seems unsatisfactory, then there's nothing wrong with observing, categorising and labeling what is, what seems to be, or what arises. It's fun, and interesting. It's what the (apparent) mind is set up to do, and can do terribly well. There certainly seems to be a phenomenon that Hinduism has described as atma (soul, ego, small self) and Pram-atma (God, awareness, ultimate reality). It may seem that what is being described is awareness (God) arising as individual awareness (ego). You could think of the "individual soul" as the arising story, and the "ultimate reality" as what the individual soul arises in. Perceptively, there is no absolute proof that there are any other individual souls. Absolutely everything, including this blog entry, is what is arising in awareness; all those clues that there are, indeed, other souls are just other bits and pieces arising in awareness. The awareness is total; you are, indeed, everything. The two are one, absolutely. No matter how many scientific tests we conduct, or how many questions you ask me about my human experience, and how carefully and honestly I answer, or how thoroughly we get together and compare our experiences, the tests, the conclusions, the answers, the comparisons, the concepts, are simply the milieu arising in awareness. The story that the mind strings along in time can be important for its conclusions, or important for its mere existence, whatever quality that existence seems to have.

To the ego that has taken on the mantle of all that exists, it is terrifying to simply let be whatever it is that seems to be happening. If it seems impossible to somehow detach, to simply be that awareness that the story comes up in, then perhaps it's possible for the ego to simply accept what is. Life is everything; even the most traumatic events have their place in everything; life is not full without them. This endless moment is what is, and if the mind leaves it alone, there is never anything "wrong". And if the mind doesn't leave it alone, we are back to the story, which seems to be here to stay, and which doesn't need to be changed or run away from. Perhaps all this objective reality, and the mind, and time, and the story, and the fear of death, and the need to make the story a good one, is a gift. Perhaps the story is the point. Maybe we come back, full circle, to the story, and can relish every bit of it: mortality, birth, destruction, creation, insanity, health, and humility in the face of a limitless cosmos.


As the clip from Parenthood illustrates, perhaps it's possible to relish all the ups and downs.

But Here Must End The Story Of My Life; And Happy Were I In My Timely Death.

We would all like to see the unfolding story go better; even the most intractable sceptic or jaded cynic, given the power to feed the hungry or free the oppressed with a magical wave of the hand, would gladly take that opportunity. Maybe, they might say, people need their emotional pain and suffering; perhaps that is part of the necessary fullness of a life, and has its uses. But few see the merit of the mass suffering of people caught up in the story of others' greed and fear. If we are caught up in the story, the goals and the results become the only thing that matter, and we blunder on, using judgment best we can, to have the right goals, take the right actions, achieve the right results, and glean some kind of meaning from life.

Confined to the mind, the conclusions about what "the right thing" is can seem arbitrary. So some of us hone different skills, or invent them, or peel away this and that layer of personal fear to reveal these skills, that give the mean judgment of the mind some broader aid; these helpers are often called instincts, or energy, or flow, or God-consciousness. This frees the mind from the responsibility of figuring it all out, and the ego can then rely on forces deemed more universal to direct its actions. The energy of it all, say some, is love. Love is what we are, love guides us, love shows us the way. How does love act? Feel it, and do it; yet even in the cradle of this universal flow, individual's actions are wildly diverse and often at odds with each other. It can seem there is no way to direct the will in the best possible way, to the best possible actions, to reach the best possible solutions.

So, many individuals feel despair. Having done all they can do to identify suffering and relieve it, whether it be their own, or belonging to the people in their small circle, or to some beleaguered civilisation, they see their efforts as ineffectual. We want real solutions, tangible progress, perceptible unity, redemptive healing and measurable progress. Yet no matter what is attempted, it can often seem that perverse human nature intervenes, and the complexities of social interaction bog us down, and the attempt of the will to relieve suffering is scuppered by that underlying fear that motivates so many of our actions. Why, for instance, does Mugabe cling to power, promise the people of Zimbabwe the world, skim the best for himself and his cronies, and squander the resources of his country? Fear: fear of losing wealth and influence and power, which he has identified to be himself, which is all he has. Such a tidal wave of fear is not easily stopped. Such fear engenders all defenses, including murder, which people respond to with a mirror of fear. Such absolute corruption continues to be the bane of the world, if the usual judgments are applied.

All this process, as described, is a common story; the story of seeking meaning, of finding or deciding meaning to be the spreading of the doctrine and energy of love, of revealing what actions this entails, and attempting to apply these actions with mixed results. This, many believe, is the pinnacle of human experience. But what if this hodgepodge is already utopia? What if the goal isn't to fix it, but to participate in the fix, in whatever form that already takes? Maybe we are already doing exactly what we must, no matter what form that takes. Maybe it's OK for some of us humans to have blinders on, so some others can see what blinders are. Maybe it's unfolding exactly as it should, as it must, in the only way it can. There is no other way. An infinite number of possibilities exist in the imagination on an infinite number of time-lines. Any of them might be how the story unfolds. None of them are wrong.


The clip is shamelessly sentimental, and a triumph of tight, wordless storytelling. The people at Pixar aren't content to just produce fantastic images; they also give us poignancy and the portrayal of a mundane life that becomes a universal expression of love, joy, tenacity and regret. It's part of the montage depicting Carl and Ellie's life together in the film Up. Enjoy.

I Greet Thy Love, Not With Vain Thanks, But With Acceptance Bounteous.

God is just a name, a label, an idea; unadorned existence given some clothes. It is interesting to see what onus of meaning is put upon this idea, the rituals attached, the civilisations created, the rules defined and followed and defended. We are so frightened of our own existence and boundlessness that we seem to need to capture it, define it, and give it comforting parameters. We take our pondering on existence and the feelings of fear and awe it engenders and take that to be the most important thing; our conclusions about life seem more important than life itself. In the global unfolding story, our fear has caused us to provide ourselves comfort at the expense of our environment and the needs of others; but this is not the only story. Greed and need are balanced by openness and acceptance. There cannot be one without the other.

But the stories don't have to be so important. No matter how heartfelt the duty or how strongly the details of the story are believed, there is, in fact, no story, not really. There is here and now, what is, the task at hand, the energy of the task, the presence of the moment. That's all there is, before we categorise, prioritise, stamp and label, quantify, postulate, agonise, or judge. Even the labeling and endless sorting out is the energy of the moment. There is no goal but this; and if goals come up, they can be a playful game, or a passionate endeavour, or a nonchalant happenstance. They need not be the validation of the story, of the ego, of the convenient persona that hops from chapter to chapter. When we sleep, we die, and there is no one that mourns our passing. When it seems we are here, what can be done within the story is nearly limitless; and, like a haiku or a sonnet, can still shine with freedom within what seems a prison or, when the glass is half-full, useful limitations.


Back to the analogy of non-duality, or enlightenment, as a film; the characters limited in their actions, unable to choose what they do even in the midst of apparent choices weighed and made. When films break the forth wall, as in the last clip from The Purple Rose of Cairo, it challenges our tidy notions and concepts about nonduality. Well, I include this clip from Ringu, a Japanese horror film, because I love horror movies and the menace and terror that ensues when known reality breaks down - always a possibility! The void of nothingness becomes more tangible when what we regard as unshakable is shaken. Sadako, the evil child in the well, has cursed a video; if you watch it, you'll die in seven days. The guy in this clip watched the video seven days ago - uh oh.

Folly In Fools Bears Not So Strong A Note As Foolery In The Wise, When Wit Doth Dote.

The story of me in the kitchen with a knife is just that - a story, arising in wholeness. It was just what seemed to be happening. It really didn't have a lot to do with clear seeing, it was a story of clear seeing; and if there was some kind of recognition, or coming home, it had to do with understanding that what it is I had been looking for was just what is, just as it is. If, indeed, I had been looking. Comforting concepts can come up, like: there is nothing wrong with duality, there is nothing wrong with whatever the manifestation, or appearance, or whatever we're calling it today, seems to be doing, including doubt, questioning and the feeling that something will happen in the "future" that will bring about some kind of final revelation and bliss or whatever. However, those kind of thoughts don't seem to come up anymore. There really isn't a process, there is no time for a process to unfold; but it can seem that there is a process of deepening, that whatever exists is truly the only thing that is, and includes all the thoughts and feelings, which only ever are happening now. A deepening that seems to reveal "what is" as more and more beautiful, absolutely whole, completely what it is, and the only thing that is. What looks, is the only constant; the still point, consciousness, "I am", presence, whatever you care to label it. Nothing is a mistake, not even incongruous expectations. Such expectations arise and fall, or seem to, like everything else. There is nothing wrong with being disturbed. The "I" completely dissolving is just the story of the "I" completely dissolving, no matter how to the point that story seems to be. You are where you are, and that is perfect, no matter how it seems. "I" is oneness, "I-ing". Nothing wrong with it at all.

Maybe you have too many expectations about what "this" or "awakening" or "enlightenment" is. Your brain/mind can seem to "come back" and "claim" an experience; however you perceive
and label such an apparent happening is this too. There is nothing that is not this. That's what an "ah ha" moment means, and why it's so amusing. What you are looking for is everything, just the way it is. It is occluded by its omnipresence. It's so simple, your mind can't possibly believe it's so obvious.

Moments of peace are great, but they aren't especially "this". They are this in yet another guise. Doubt, resistance, fear - this in an egoic guise. However, when "this" is "realised", there seems to be less resistance, doubt and fear - but this isn't "let's make a deal". There are no guarantees about what the quality of life will be, in the story that seems to unfold, if wholeness is apprehended. The only guarantee is that whatever it is that seems to be happening, thought, or felt is this. EVERYTHING is what the seeker searches for. You can stop looking. THIS IS IT!


I've always liked the analogy of nonduality as a film; the characters have interesting lives, but cannot change what happens; and yet they are light itself; what we truly are is likened to the light that makes the projections possible. Well, let's play with that. What if the characters unravel reality and hop off the screen, no longer slave to the film and script? That's explored in Woody Allen's Purple Rose of Cairo. The characters that remain argue about who is the most important character. One bumbles on, and exits in a fluster; he's not due until the third reel. The ego and its imagination loves the idea that it has absolute freedom. Enjoy.

And Then This 'Should' Is Like A Spendthrift Sigh, That Hurts By Easing.

It is freeing when the ins and outs of life don't seem quite so important. Oh, they're there all right, just as they are, just as they are perceived. The mind can play all it likes with making the situations of life big or small, distressing or not, uncontrollable or precisely managed, existent or nonexistent. There can be big, all-encompassing experiences that are labeled "truth" and objectivity can be applied to them - or not. Fear can seem to drive all action, or there can be little drive but sheer momentum. There are as many ways to live a life as there are lives, it seems. There can be a lot of questioning of it all, a huge longing to know the truth of life, the underlying, fundamental, absolute answer to the question of existence, or there can be one single, narrow problem that absorbs all of life's energies. The common conclusion, subjectively, often seems to be "it's all for nothing."

Well, maybe so. Perhaps the moving and shaking, cringing and hiding, boldness and timidity that are just some of the qualities of living all come to nothing, and have no import beyond their intrinsic value, by the virtue of their existence. Perhaps a solid, unshakable system of belief isn't strictly necessary to live, or whatever the belief system there is, it can unfold gently and naturally, with not too much importance placed on absolute adherence to a set of rules based on imagination. Perhaps the less the will interferes with life, the "better," more efficiently, and more smoothly it goes...or perhaps "better" doesn't matter quite so much, and all the facets of emotion and circumstance can be relished, it not outrightly enjoyed.

Everything life requires is always present. If nothingness manifest, the formless formed, awareness without duality is how the mind likes to conceptualise existence, there is nothing wrong with that; but it's useful to remember that no matter how fundamental the concept of existence is, it's still a concept. Any idea about reality is one step removed from reality. Everyone is reality itself, before the mind gets hold of it and has a lot of fancy ideas about it. Enlightenment defined as awareness looking at itself, before the mind gives it time and objectivity, is fine. Some experience of life without the analysis of mind being the most important thing is probably desirable. Yet it doesn't matter; everything is everything, nothing is nothing, right now, no matter how the mind and ego interprets it.


This clip illustrates the frustration that can ensue when the nanny state is busy over-dictating each and every interaction with society. A million Londoners will identify with Edina (Jennifer Saunders), ranting in court in a fantastic episode of Absolutely Fabulous. The fact that she was very deserving of being in court is beside the point. Sometimes it's fun to take the story seriously!

O, Our Lives' Sweetness! That We The Pain Of Death Would Hourly Die Rather Than Die At Once!

The unfolding story of a life might be anything; the claiming of those incidents, feelings, thoughts, and attributes are what constitutes an ego. It is preached over and over again that the ego is undesirable. The ego is. The personality negotiates this bliss and sorrow and madness and sanity that is the world, the universe; or at least, it seems to. The mistake, we are told, is to take the mind's stringing together of what happens in time as the whole of our existence. The error, it is said by many, is to have the unfolding story informed and motivated by fear. No, no, say others, the problem is to pay any attention to the story at all. The story, after all, is comprised of a lot of past memories and future plans that have no more substance than a few electrical impulses in the brain. Live in the here and now, it is strongly suggested. No, no, that's wrong, say some, it isn't about living in the here and now; it's identifying with the here and now, it's the ego willing itself to be here, now that's the problem. The ego doesn't really exist. It is an airy-fairy construct. What you are is what comes before the ego claims and feels and interprets, before the ego decides it needs to be here and now. But what am I, say a chorus of people led by their ego, if not this thing that feels and decides and thinks and lives?

Well, say many, you are what the feeling and deciding and thinking and living arises in. All appearances of life are the same thing, but take many apparent forms. And the pensioner writing vehement letters about the local councillors neglecting to show up to council meetings, the soul very deeply enmeshed in the story, with no clue that the nature of existence is boundless and is comprised of limitless possibility itself, is just as infinite as the yogi abiding in I Am. The form is unimportant. The content is insignificant. The stories are as they must be, and that includes everything, including the impulse to action to change the story into something "better".

There is a huge desire, a massive (often implicit) aspiration of the egos that write about nonduality (or enlightenment or awakening) to show others their true nature, to help egos to stop identifying with the story the ego negotiates and the attributes the ego possesses. Just a few sessions will do it, some promise; others practice tough love and tell the egos to stop clinging to love and compassion, that it's just another trap for the ego to stick around, now considering itself to be pure unconditional love. Whatever is suggested, is suggested, and whatever is attempted is attempted. No matter how "to the point" the content of the story is, it is just another interesting manifestation of energy, which is, after all, what matter also is. No matter how deluded or how sensible the story is, it is all infinite and eternal, boundless and free, no matter how the mind interprets what is happening.

Enjoying it, even the "bad" bits, is always a possibility, for mere existence is wonder.


The clip is from Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful. How he makes use of the worst possible situation to amuse his son is the imagination's proof that anything, any circumstance, can be tolerable.

For Truth Hath Better Deeds Than Words To Grace It.

It doesn't matter what you do, and whatever you do, there is no one choosing to do it. All energies are equal, all insanities fitting, all deeds made moot by their fleeting non-existence; yet each form of the ever-changing, endless moment is rich in meaning and wonder. It doesn't matter how it is seen, this life, this existence; all perceptions are valid, all beliefs suitable, all thoughts appropriate, all action correct. Nothing delights in life; it is delight itself. The tug and pull of the quality of unconditional love as the pervasive and nascent quality of everything is compelling; we want it to be so; we need it to be so; it is so. Life makes no judgments on itself; it lives. The duality that exists so that life can take form necessitates good and bad, comfort and uneasiness, bliss and despair. What knows this, what sees this, and what notes this is what you are; you are not what is noted, although this case of mistaken identity is not wrong. Some scion of awareness crawls into the story and the story becomes all-important; and although a rising-above this is often encouraged, to be and feel and live the story is also a miracle, no matter what the story seems to be.

Without resistance, the unfolding story can flow into endless possibility, unhindered by the limited imagination. With resistance, the story can be intense in its emotions and rich in its synchronicity; remember no one chooses, all choices choose life, in yet another guise. To be free of the grasping ego is liberation, and to be caught up in the grasping ego is a privilege. Who judges that freedom is the ultimate goal? There are no true goals, only different energies, tasks appreciated or rejected, paths explored or uninvestigated. Life is life. There is no way to get it wrong; there is no way to get it right.

I love this clip from the ultimate pretentious, rule-breaking film of the eighties, My Dinner With Andre. The look on Wallace Shawn's face after Andre's interesting church story is priceless! Maybe imagination isn't so limited after all.

But The Wisest Beholder, That Knew No More But Seeing, Could Not Say If The Importance Were Joy or Sorrow.

Such a deep, dark, depressing crevasse to look down upon, the notion that all is meaningless. Yet it is, after all, just a notion, and the thing that believes it a construct. Constructed by what? By learning through time, which is a concept in itself; by thoughts taken seriously by themselves; and by reinforcement from a collective of thought constructs. Reality is airy-fairy. The solidity of matter, the mystery of life, and the consciousness that registers it all is a bonus, and enigma, and a wonder, no matter what the interpretation or quality of reality seems to be.

Much is made of the concepts by which our inadequate-to-the-task minds explain the very thing the mind arises in. Concepts suggest that concepts are in the way. Planned thoughts and actions, only accomplished through the convenient tool of time and more concepts, infer that there is a method by which the mind can be occluded and the seamlessness of existence be apprehended directly; and it is implied that this direct experience is always the case, and the thoughts that are "in the way" are actually part of the seamlessness. And, in fact, that there are no object or subjects, not even the consciousness that separates and labels things; that actually, whether it is labelled "oneness" or "twoness", reality is what reality is, however it seems to be. Period. And it is this reality, no matter how inadequate or painful, that's what is sought by everyone; and it is the inability to realise this that causes (in nonexistent time) the pain and the feeling of inadequacy.

There is nothing wrong, not even (or possibly especially) the feeling that something is wrong. The journey home starts from home, roves around the intricacies of the home we call all creation, and ends, amusingly, at home.

Mimi wo Sumaseba (Whisper of the Heart) is a lovely, gentle amime film that meanders placidly through the life of a little girl, Shizuku. A plot device is several rewritten versions of Country Roads by John Denver. The road home is also home.

'Tis In The Malice of Mankind That He Thus Advises Us; Not To Have Us Thrive In Our Mystery.

Discover your true nature...that is the promise, the future event, that brings seekers of the meaning of life to sites like this one. They come for meaning, and are either told there isn't any, or that their humdrum ordinary life is fraught with intrinsic meaning, if only they perceive it a bit differently. There are instructions (investigate the "I"), there are paradoxical teachings from people who insist they aren't teachers (no one can teach you to be what you already are), and there is the assurance that the comfy, cozy reality you've always known is, indeed, the very thing you seek; that it is the awareness that reality arises in that is truly reality; that, in fact, what you seek is what seeks; and that there is no change, not really, not even some perceptual shift. It is the realization of this, the fact that "you've" always already been "enlightened", and that enlightenment or awakening is simply (for the mind) at last being content with "what is" that constitutes awakening. In that acceptance of what is, the lack of resistance to what is, including the very resistance itself, lies the secret, the obvious conclusion; we are where we are, we are what we are, now. Whatever and wherever that is, is open to the mind's interpretation, and all interpretations are correct.

The mind will have lots of conditioned ideas about what all this means, and what actions are subsequently required. It will reject any apparent incongruities, i. e., teaching your children to share or engage in any behaviour that reflects a value system, because all value systems are a product of the ego taking itself and its role too seriously. However, it may become clear that you can't get it wrong. There are many words devoted to describing existence, and the concept of nothingness, and how everything that seems to be happening is not happening at all; if the mind ponders the possibility of nothingness, a sort of awe arises, and perhaps a thankfulness for mere existence, which comes to resemble a miracle in and of itself. It may become clear that the tools of duality that are so richly available (when nothing exists except perhaps a bit of cleverly arranged energy, devoid of judgment) are the very things we've been searching for. Maybe it becomes glaringly apparent that life, just as it is, is the very thing we've been traveling to Oz to find, when it has been living in our own back yard. Perhaps the ego and its baggage are something to relish. Perhaps the struggles of mankind, and his suffering, and his quest to relieve that suffering, are the priceless gifts of humanity. Maybe, just maybe, you've been doing it all along, even the doubting of it and the questioning and the restlessness, irritability and discontent.

Miller, the nutball from the entirely excellent film Repo Man, surely has this all figured out.

Thou Bear's Thy Heavy Riches But A Journey, And Death Unloads Thee.

In the unfolding story, if apparent cause and effect are taken note of and the journeys and bridges and waylayings are apprehended, and if some judgement of their worth and aspect are divined, with amusement and perhaps with pathos, it could be said that letting go completely (although the method, if there is one, of this surrender is disputed) doesn't squelch ambition, but simply makes ambition a goal unto itself. Unbridled, the undemanding ego simply undertakes whatever form of action furnished by whatever apparent source, and every action, freed from the necessity of validating the persona that carries it out, is an action seemingly fraught with fundamental meaning. The outcomes are perhaps not so conjectured, so the outcomes, if, indeed, cause and effect are even noted, are free to be whatever they can be, and not confined to simply whatever can be imagined. In this phenomenon of "being lived" lies the comforting answer to the still grasping, overburdened ego. You cannot fulfil infinite potential whilst still confined by fear and defences, although fear and defenses can often seem to play an important role; conditioning is conditioning, it is there, and our personas were all shaped by the multiplicity of apparent experience. To quench our flaws by an act of conscious will perhaps denies their usefulness. If the goal is unknown and the method of obtaining it a mystery, any defenses can naturally be discarded, or used for their full benefit; stubbornness, for example, is not always an impediment, and conscious compassion sometimes blinds us to some more useful form of "tough love".

The less you absolutely know what to do, the more potential fills that vacuum. Perhaps "what to do next" can become less some vexing mystery, and more some awe-inspiring discovery; if, indeed, "what to do next" is even noted, or pondered upon. The ego relieved of the burden of its own apparent journey is an ego freed to take the best possible journey, and that journey is no longer judged by a set of narrow rules and beliefs. In fact, the journey in time seems less a story with a beginning, a middle and and end; the journey is, in fact, just a timeless constant rearrangement of reality, there for the amusement (or bemusement) and edification of the parcel of awareness that we seem to be. It is frightening to let go. It is fearful to die, as a small person named Jim or Angela or Hassim or Nanako, and become an apparent slice of everything. However, paradoxically, that is already the case, no matter how stifled the journey seems to be, or how limited the character that takes it. Your confining persona could "die" at any "time", and if it doesn't, that is what is meant to be, and the boxed-in journey is not wrong, but exactly what is needed. If the mind is open, and the road is wide, there is no need for despair, except where despair can play its own hard role.

The Straight Story is a classic journey, taken by a stubborn old man named Alvin, who knows he has to travel to his estranged and very ill brother entirely on his own steam for the journey to mean as much as it does to him to his brother. Limited by lameness and blindness and having no drivers license, he decides to travel 240 miles from Laurens, Iowa to Mount Zion, Wisconsin on a lawn mower. It really happened, and was made into a film by David Lynch. Alvin just wants to be with his brother and look up at the stars with him again, like they did when they were kids. This is the end of the film. Simply sitting on a porch is wholeness, completeness, and perfection.

The Wheel Is Come Full Circle: I Am Here.

Words and concepts are all we have to play with in this forum. Yet words and concepts, tools of the dividing mind, will never bring anyone closer to what they already are. Even the clearest of ideas, related with succinctness of phrase and efficient eloquence, fail to describe fundamental awareness, the page on which all words rest, the plate all experience is supped from, the simple being that is before and after and during each thought, feeling, or happening. Words may nudge the mind into giving itself up as king, but whatever story of denial is indulged in, simple awareness is the book in which the story unfolds. You are: that is undeniable. And that beingness, the background for all things and thoughts and feelings that seem to exist, seems hidden; what looks for it is what looks.

In the book, on the page, any story may unfold. There may be a strong urge for the story to move from a destructive one to a creative one. There may be a story of less ego-fear, and more openness; less resistance because of less fear, and more creativity and compassion. Yet however painful the unfolding story may feel, and however strong the desire for less pain is, if there is no one that takes the story seriously, and no one claiming the pain, the pain ceases to be suffering. There is nothing wrong with pain; pain is yet another sensation that arises in awareness, as is confusion, and doubt, and struggle. In life, there is everything. A full life feels everything, and doesn't run away from what might be labeled "uncomfortable" or "difficult". There is nothing wrong, and more to the point, there is nothing wrong with you.

It might be possible to not put so much importance on words and ideas and concepts. It might be possible to just live, openly, honestly, and willingly, with not so much resistance; it might be possible to be alive to any and all possibilities that always exist, now. It might be that a better life is just around the corner, but that life won't involve anyone or anything that is more whole and complete and perfect than what is, right now, for everything is, right now. Anything might happen, and anything is possible, now. Words are the icing. They are not the answer; there is no answer but this, now.

Below is an example of just how useless words are; even the clearest and simplest of phrases may be misunderstood!

To Seek The Light Of Truth; While Truth The While Doth Falsely Blind The Eyesight Of His Look.

Memory and speculation happen now. Pain and separation happen now. Bliss and the quiet mind is happening now. The paradox, hated by the mind, that we are both all one yet seemingly alone, happens now. You are what you are now. Not in some nonexistent future; the future never is; all is now. There is much habitual delving back into the story, taken seriously by the mind which only sees itself. There is much lauding of practice, of readiness, in the mind for "enlightenment" to happen. It can certainly seem to be a practice, a practice that can be realised in many ways. All practice has the goal of stripping the ego of its importance, allowing what is to be more readily apprehended. Yet no matter what the apparent state of mind now, no matter what is perceived and how that perception is interpreted, you are what you are now.

What is - the wall, the keyboard, the faint hum of traffic, the feeling of the body on the chair, the thoughts that note these things - is often dismissed. The story that the mind tells itself about what is happening is similarly discredited. The feelings that arise as a part of it all cry out to the mind to be explained; the"why" of it is craved, the sense of it all being purposeful and orderly is demanded by an ego frightened of its own demise. All these thoughts and judgements and feelings are said to be nothing, meaningless, unworthy. Yet the paradox that the mind dislikes perhaps most of all is that those thoughts, sensations, and feelings are boundless, timeless existence, despite their seeming solidity and logic and narrowly defined importance. You are what takes note.

The practice of peeling away at the ego is laudable. It unfolds choicelessly. Whether it be at the foot of a guru, with the nose buried in a book or two or twenty, face to face with a sympathetic therapist, or in self-help groups, empathy and tolerance can convince the mind of the possibility of oneness and the unimportance (and beauty) of the ego. However, it must be said (by who?) that whatever you are, you are now, "before" the ego is "ready". The message that there is no teacher and no one to teach may paradoxically be the teaching that forces the ego to realise that there is nowhere to go, no blissful state to seek, nothing other than what is, now, because now is all there is, and whatever it is that is noted, it is the noting that never changes.

And now, for all you frustrated seekers. From The Wizard of Oz, the clearest parable of seeking, its lesson being that we always have the power to go home, and, in fact, are always home since the journey is but a dream. Here is the best reaction when the guru says you were always home in the first place.

He Is Too Good And Fair For Death And Me: Whom I Myself Embrace, To Set Him Free.

One of the hardest things for the ego to accept is that this, life, however it seems to manifest, just exactly as it is, is enough. It's depressing for the ego the accept that all the problems overcome in time, all the rigmarole, all the worthy concern, all the chaos perhaps finally ordered, is of nothing, to nothing, and for nothing. There is, however, an ambiance of the ego having its cake and eating it too. For an ego unbridled of itself, unmoved by itself, and revealed to be a mere construct is an ego freed to do its apparent job. When time is no longer the slave master, the story in time has cosmic perspective. The mind may not be able to figure it out, but the mind doesn't care so much; and in this apparent relaxation of the ego, it can be noticed that everything, just as it is, is enough. What has been called the "is-ness" of it seems enough. The manifest, all around, as it is, is noted; maybe thought about, maybe not, and is seen for what it is, without, perhaps, too many mind-filters to obscure it from itself. In the story in time, this is a possibility; but there is no time, so what is described here, with these concepts of "is-ness" and intrinsic worth is...just maybe...just perhaps...how reality is already perceived, by "you".

The quest for truth, the search for freedom, the seeking of enlightenment, and the thirst for meaning seem to happen. These journeys are imbued with importance and worth. The ego is consumed with itself, cannot see itself, cannot escape itself, until it sees there never was a prison. Yet the machinations of the ego are the spice of life; the ego's struggles and triumphs are poignant, genius, spectacular. They can still arise. Even if the illusion is seen through, it is only another story of seeing through an illusion; there is no end goal; there is only what is. And that is enough.

The Marx brothers, those great gurus of the twentieth century, once again encapsulate the Meaning of Life:

This Comes With Seeking You: But There's No Remedy; I Shall Answer it.

That quote usually attributed to St. Francis, "What you are looking for is what is looking", really nails it. Nobody will believe how simple this is. Nobody will believe there's nothing different, nothing special, nothing changed about awakening or enlightenment or whatever we're calling it today. There are a lot of handy dandy pointers, along the lines of "what you are is awareness and everything arises in that", or "what you are is present awareness, nothing more," or "you are one without a second". They're all concepts. These words are concepts. The seeker's frustration obscures the utter simplicity of what is. And even the obscuring is what is happening, now, in present awareness.

There can be looking for what is, or there can be what is. There can be a lot of tweaking of the story of life; there can be therapy, meditation, recovery, healing, looking at one's life story nakedly and accepting it all; these things may provide an open mind, ready for the message that what is sought is exactly what is right now. Yet there need be no readiness. You are what you are, timelessly, right now. There's nothing wrong with the tweaking, the healing, the changing of a life story from a "destructive" one to a "creative" one. But awareness is immortal, unchanging, not bound by time, not confined by space, taking up no space in fact, for space is just a convenience, as is time. As are thoughts. It doesn’t matter, therefore, what arises, as it’s all just a play for its own sake. So no matter what thoughts are doing, or whether you’re “getting it” or not, it’s all happening just as it must, for no particular reason. When the big “letting go” or “ah ha” thing seems to happen, all that is really plain; and the St. Francis quote makes perfect sense, both to the mind, which is finally in its somewhat more auxiliary role, and to awareness itself, which was always looking anyway. It all loops back around to the simplest of simple things: instead of looking for looking, there is just looking. And life is just as it ever was. Oneness is known to be awareness, the only thing; the content, just energy, and feel free to rename and hone those particular concepts.

You are this. You are this now. Whatever thoughts are flying, whatever feelings are strumming, whatever sensations are pulsing, whatever actions are unfolding - this is it. "You" are "there". We "all" are.

I'll bet Jackie Chan is too busy for an existential crisis. He CRAZY!

Simply The Thing I Am Shall Make Me Live.

I was listening to a friend describe his life; it was unbelievably profound, and went roughly like this: "...My work is patchy, and it's a pretend job anyway, the kind of thing your dad always told you to be ready to ditch at any moment because you'd never make a living at it - I don't really pay enough attention to my kids, which are the main thing and I know it - and I really think I'm messing up my marriage in a big way - I'm too lazy, I don't do even half of what I could in a day - and I'm not nice enough to people..." And here he paused, with commendable comic timing, and continued:

"...But so what?"

Oh, how we laughed!

That black hole, that void, that cause of all existential crises, the sure knowledge that life is meaningless inasmuch as the story of it is concerned, that nothingness that is reality – it’s a big bummer for the persona. The mysterious life force, the awareness that everything arises in, that which seems to animate reality, and the dead body at a funeral that is the proof of manifestation’s transience, will never be understood fully by the mind; although in the story of humanity, there are plenty of scientists and philosophers that give it a good go. That animating force that a corpse lacks - despite having the same mass as when it was Auntie Jane - is simply what you are, what is expressed by everything, and the mind can’t really grasp it because it’s what the mind arises in. But what consciousness can do, in witnessing the mind’s take on it – the take on it can be:

“Well, so what?”

And there, in that sort of complete letting go, absolute acceptance, cosmic f*** it, is the freedom that eludes the mind. Then, slowly, what arises is a chuckle, then maybe a slightly hysterical belly laugh.

Because all of that taking it oh so seriously that the persona was doing – the ego taking itself to be everything – is seen for the absurdity it is.

The ego will die. The small “me” will die. It can die right now. Death of the body and mind isn’t death of what they arise in. And those struggles and conniptions and flashes of bliss and happiness that are humanity can be truly relished, by themselves, by just doing what happens…which is all anyone ever does anyway.