That Which Is Before You

There is nothing but the limitless One, in which all phenomena manifest, and all phenomena are nothing but the One, without division or distinction.

People call it enlightenment, gnosis, liberation, Self-realization, God-realization, or simply awakening. I won’t dispute the vocabulary. It’s the one we have. There are many other names for it and many words associated with it, coming from a wide variety of cultures and traditions, but the truth they speak of is beyond all names and words.

Like a lot of people though, I felt like there was something absent in my life, a kind of hole that desperately needed to be filled, a missing thing that I could not place, no matter where I looked. Over time, this developed into deep dissatisfaction, chronic frustration, and eventually depression. And this thing, whatever it was, always seemed just beyond my grasp. It was the only thing that could satisfy me, and it always slipped away, no matter how hard I tried to reach it. And I tried, a thousand different ways I tried — sometimes knowingly, many times unknowingly — to find this missing thing.

A breeze blew, and something moved amidst the swaying of the high branches. I sensed something … something so beautiful … so overwhelming that I almost fell down. Tears streamed down my face. It was just … unbearable bliss and beauty. It was beyond bliss, beyond indescribable, beyond beyond. And that, whatever you care to call it, is ever-present, here and now.

I literally felt I was in heaven. We’ve been here all along, I thought. Heaven is here and now. We just never noticed.

This being the case, perception and thoughts are limited accordingly. People are, in essence, perceiving not an objective reality, but rather a symbolic world, manipulated with symbolic thoughts and communicated through symbolic language.

The great myths speak of this. We are cast out of paradise, cut off from God. We are reborn into samsara, this world of birth and death, and find ourselves lost in our thoughts and delusions. In extraordinary moments, sometimes we may glimpse this ultimate reality, but do not realize it. And few recognize they are it, manifested briefly in this life, like a fleeting thought, barely grasped, like a flash of lightning or a shooting star. We build a wall of thought between ourselves and the reality of being. We separate ourselves with the idea of an inside and outside, of a self and other, of a mind and body. And this separation, this ignorance of our true nature, is the source of all our frustration and suffering, for we grasp at shadows and wisps of smoke, trying desperately to hold on to them.

The path itself is an illusion. There is no method, no technique, no way to get there. Each life is a puzzle, a labyrinth, a Gordian knot, that must be undone before awakening. But in the end, the puzzle itself will be smashed. The labyrinth will collapse. The Gordian knot will be cut clean through with the sword of truth.

We are not our minds, or our bodies, or anything we can possibly think of. Our true nature is beyond all that. But at some point, we hid this from ourselves with thoughts. We identified with our minds, thoughts and memories, and with our bodies, actions and sensations. We created for ourselves a little island, an identity separate from everything else. Then it seemed we were like visitors to this world from somewhere else, but we couldn’t imagine where. And this separation, between self and other, was the beginning of all the trouble and drama. We hid our true nature in a web of illusions, and began to live through symbols and concepts. This process was so subtle, and yet so thorough, that we didn’t even see it happening. And we kept this secret in the cleverest place imaginable: in the idea of a self. We tricked ourselves completely. We cannot know this secret without destroying the idea of ourselves. But who will destroy it? And who will know the secret when it is destroyed? And so we are trapped in a double bind. It is like we have hypnotized ourselves. It is like we are dreaming.

If you can look at the whole process and really see that there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, you have already let go. But you have to really see it, not just understand it intellectually. You must feel it to be so, and know directly, in the very core of being. There is no way to improve yourself. There is nothing to know. Nowhere to go. Nothing to achieve. Nothing to do. When everything has been surrendered, the person you thought you were dies away. You step out of time, and suddenly realize there is nothing to escape from. The secret is revealed. It’s all you, and there is nowhere but here and now. Enlightenment is real. You’ve been there all along. God is real, but beyond all imagination.

INSIGHTS There is nothing Else but this. No self or other, No past or future, No inside or outside. There is no explanation. And yet … No lack, No need, No want.

There is a price to be paid, though. You’ll have to give up all your beliefs about who you are and about the world around you. That is not an easy thing to do. It turns out we hold on to many delusions much more deeply than even a fairly clear-headed person would suppose, so even identifying how far your beliefs go can be a challenge. In the end you must, in fact, give up yourself and everything else along with it. But for those who really long for the truth, no price is too high. And for those who are close to death, as all those living are in some sense, you have nothing to lose.

Spirituality itself can be a maze of delusions. But relatively speaking, there are deliberate actions an individual can take, ideas to consider, practices to undertake, and relentless inquiries to pursue, that may increase the probability of awakening, or accelerate the process.

My purpose here is not to close the mind around a series of ideas and concepts one way or another, but to open it and point directly toward that which we are already.

Nevertheless, what I say may call into question core beliefs we hold about ourselves, the world, and our assumptions about life and reality. Depending on what beliefs one holds, how strongly they are clung to, and in what manner, readers may have a variety of reactions. A strong reaction can itself be an opportunity for inquiry and insight. Why did you have that reaction? What thought prompted that feeling?

For example, twenty years ago, when I was living in New York, I bought a book called Zen: Beyond All Words by Wolfgang Kopp.

As it turns out, this was the book I read just prior to awakening. I tore through it, and the contents hit my mind like a sledgehammer. So wherever you’re at in your journey, make no assumptions. What’s most important about these teachings is not the content, but what you, the reader, bring to them. If you truly understand yourself, you will understand everything. No text, no practice, no teaching can show you the secret, but all are an opportunity for inquiry, and through that the truth may suddenly be revealed.

Before we go further, let’s explore the idea of this spiritual journey. Where does it begin? Where does it end? How can one make progress along the way? We can imagine this journey as one in which consciousness itself collapses into a particular point of view, identifies with a mind and body, and loses itself in a kind of dream, in a world of things, and in life and death. Once lost, sensing some lack, it tries to find itself. It looks everywhere but cannot find itself…

The journey is like an adventure into a labyrinth. Within we are confounded by mazes and locked doors, enticed by wondrous treasures, challenged by terrible monsters, and entranced by endless illusions. It can be great fun. But in the midst of the labyrinth, when things get bad, it can get very dark indeed. It can seem as if there is no way out. But when we have exhausted every possibility of escape, and all our efforts come to a grinding halt, it is possible to wake up as if in the…

That means what you seek is already present. The kingdom of heaven is here and now. You have never been apart from it. Finding it is not a matter of reaching some distant place, but of realizing what is right in front of you. This is where things get tricky, though. You can’t simply wake yourself up, because the you who you think you are is part of the dream from which you seek to awake. It turns out you can’t just will yourself to stop looking for a way out, either. No matter how hard you try, it just keeps happening. You’re really wrapped up in it, and to stop you have to really stop. This is a strange situation to be in. On the one hand, there’s nothing we can do to force this change to come about. On the other hand, as long as we are searching, we must keep searching if we are ever to exhaust our efforts and really let go. So our search is not in vain; it just never succeeds in the way we imagine. The imagined path always fails, but when it fails completely, realization dawns in an unexpected way. Ultimately, it’s not as complicated as it sounds.…

THERE IS NO PROBLEM At some point in our development, we get a feeling or idea that there is something wrong. This can manifest in a variety of ways. Perhaps there is some kind of problem we feel we must solve, some question we feel needs answering, some knowledge we must gain, or some level of success we must achieve. We may feel there is some task to accomplish or some injustice that needs to be corrected. Or perhaps we just feel a general sense of wrongness, about ourselves, about the world, about life. Some may deny the existence of this feeling, but we suspect there is something forced about their professed contentment. They are too sure of themselves, as if compensating with overconfidence for a hidden lack. When pressed, most of us will reveal an essential discomfort with the situation we find ourselves in.

Much of what we do in life is by way of trying to address this feeling in various ways. But from where does the feeling or idea arise? And can it really be addressed by any of the things we are doing? Will working harder make us successful? Will more exercise make us healthy? Will a better diet make us live longer? Will a more harmonious relationship make us happy? Maybe — relatively speaking — but will any kind of self-improvement improve us fundamentally? Will any of it solve the feeling that is at the core of our discontent? Will any of it alleviate our existential dread?

Nor will they relieve any nagging feeling that something is not quite right, that we have not yet arrived, not yet made it. So what is the solution? More exercise? A stricter diet? A new spiritual idea or religion? Perhaps a new car or a better-fitting jacket? The curious thing about this feeling is that we can never quite pinpoint it. That’s why our attempts at solving it are so often haphazard. We flail about in the darkness at phantoms and ghosts, entirely unaware that the problem is us. The feeling of unease or incompleteness…

truth, our ignorance of reality, our alienation from God, our exile from the primordial consciousness that…

That is because, essentially, there is no problem. We have only forgotten that we created the problem to begin with, by drawing the distinction between ourselves and everything else. We pretended to be separate and then proposed there was a problem to be solved other than our own imagined separation. So the solution is not to take yet another step forward, but to take a step back, to an awareness that exists prior to distinctions. Step back and see as you once did, before there was any feeling that something was wrong, before any idea of yourself as separate and distinct from the world, before any notion of the known and unknown. Step back into…

We can call the sense of self the ego. I would say the basic sense of self goes back even farther than the ego, but it really makes no difference what we call it. It is the persona with which a person generally identifies. It is the feeling of being me. It is the thing to which we attribute thoughts and emotions, and to which we attach all our ambitions and problems, hopes and fears, memories and dreams. Most people think of this ego as being somehow contained within the body, although not necessarily of the body. The ego is imagined, perhaps, as a kind of person inside the person, who is in charge of various volitional processes, and who possesses various automatic processes. With a series of memories, a person constructs the image of a whole continuous life story and thinks, This is my story; this is who I am. But memory, ever in the present, can only ever be about the past. Memory can never tell us anything about this present moment, including who we are now, which is where we actually exist. We must then be who is having this memory. Surely that is who we are.

In fact, there is no person inside your head, conjuring thoughts or making memories appear, or telling your hands to move when you write, or your legs to move when you walk. You will never find such a person. It is a fantasy, an imaginary entity created to fulfill various linguistic and social functions. There are only thoughts. There are just feelings. They only seem to be our thoughts when we imagine someone must be thinking in order for there to be thoughts. And every once in a while we have a thought that says, These are my thoughts. When these thoughts repeat enough, with a high enough frequency, it seems like someone is really there. But the ego is just a shadow of circumstance. Shine a bright enough light on it, and it will disappear.

From the very beginning of our lives, long before we even learn to speak, people are telling us who and what we are. You are this or that type of person. This is your foot; that is your hand. You like this; you don’t like that. And so on. We grow up hearing these things, and the more we hear them the more real they become to us. Along the way we develop language, preferences, and memories. And we…

that book. Because a verb requires a subject, there is always this “I.” And bit by bit we begin to identify with this “I,” the feeling of it, and its life story. One day, when we are still quite young, we realize this person we more and more clearly imagine ourselves to be, will one day cease to be. In that moment the ego is truly born. I remember clearly the moment I first realized I was going to die. It was a thunderous, overwhelming realization, and the knowledge of any interval of time before it happened, no matter how large, made no difference. I was going to die! In such a moment, the ego…

From that moment onward, all our thoughts, emotions, and memories are attributed to this new found self, and all our troubles begin to accumulate around it. Eventually we may notice something is missing from our lives, and so the search begins. Many people speak of…

From the start, the ego is constructed in such a way as to perpetuate itself. It will confuse any attempt to see through it, and co-opt any attempt to get rid of it. If you wish to truly see through this illusion, there are no easy answers. Try first to intellectually understand how arbitrary and insubstantial the ego is — a kind of construct cobbled together from various thoughts, sensations, and memories. Try to feel where this sense of self comes from, how it originates, how it renews and sustains itself in your thoughts. Be absolutely honest with yourself. But remember, the ego will claim each thought as its own. Cultivate a sense of letting go of your identity, rather…

All your troubles may seem to fall away. Your thoughts and actions may seem to just happen, effortlessly, motivated by the same thing that…

Nevertheless, the way we think about the world and the way it generally appears to us is not its true nature. We need not negate the world entirely, but we should not mistake any concept we may hold about it as reality. Rather, what if we simply voided all concepts about it? All concepts are dependent on other concepts, so none can express the full reality that is before us. Even sophisticated ideas about reality have their roots in fundamental assumptions about discreet objects and events, with a separation between self and world. Stripped of concepts, we are faced with our naked awareness and the inexplicable dance of reality unfolding within it. What else are we to conclude? There is no objective world. There is no subjective world. There is only this being, in which subject and object are one. Separation and all dualities are illusory, masking the deeper reality of transcendent being. Believing in the illusion or any part of it obscures the true nature of yourself, the universe, and the ultimate reality that permeates all existence and non-existence. From very early on in life, when we started to make distinctions between this and that, we essentially took symbols and concepts as reality, and have been conditioned to believe in them ever since. But such symbols, such concepts, such things, are real only in the way a dream is real, for all distinctions are creations of the mind.

Therefore, it is highly likely that until you can see completely through the illusion of the ego, you will continue to take some illusion of the world as real. This illusion is mistaken for a permanent reality by the thought-deluded mind, but it is more like a weaving of smoke. It is ephemeral, impermanent, and ever changing. While this may be understood intellectually, when the veil of illusion is actually lifted, the undeluded mind sees all forms just as they are, with all their impermanence, as manifestations of the ultimate reality.

TOTAL PERCEPTION Perception is not a dead-end street running into the cul-de-sac of the self. It is more like a Möbius strip. With a mysterious twist it circles around, and when you finally make the whole circuit you see what’s going on. You’re right back where you started, and you realize there is only one side to the thing. Then the whole process becomes clear, and a kind of total perception unfolds before you. It is widely believed that there is an external world and an internal mind or consciousness that is somehow aware of it. But where is this mind that is aware, if not in the world? And where is this world it is aware of, if not in the mind? No matter how you work it out, there is something very strange going on here. It is only the creation of an internal ego identity and various conceptual models of an external world that prevent us from completing the full circuit. This makes perception look like a dead-end that ends within the self. This makes it seem as if we are perceiving things. But remove these conceptual roadblocks, and world perceives world, mind perceives mind.

With this total perception, you will see everything as it is and realize fully that what is perceived is that which is perceiving. Like the serpent that devours its own tail, subject and object are one and the same reality.

There is no other time. However, we fill up this moment by projecting ourselves into various memories of a past or predictions of a future. We do it so thoroughly, so constantly, that we do not even really see the present moment. We see only our temporal projections.

By believing in the illusion of time, we create all kinds of problems for ourselves. In fact, all problems are time bound — all worries, all regrets, all causation, all blame, all guilt, all fear, and so on. All are dependent on the illusion of a past and future. The ego-self, as a construct composed of thoughts, memories, and predictions, is also bound in time. It cannot exist when awareness abides in the full light of the present moment. It vanishes like a ghost at dawn, along with all the problems, pain, suffering, and negative thoughts that have attached to it. So ask yourself: In this very moment, who are you? Right now, what problems really exist?

Even to say there is a now can be misleading, although much less than saying there is a past and future. This is simply because now is a temporal concept, and might lead one again to believe in the illusion of time. So let us say, there is only this, that which is before you. It has no name. Although its forms are ever changing, it is eternal.

Not This Not That

And we cannot have life without death. We cannot have self without other, and we cannot have existence without non-existence. All opposites arise mutually, as if they are two sides of the same thing.

And if there is something, how is it that something came out

of nothing? When really, it should be clear that something and nothing must arise mutually.

Some might say “That’s just a bunch of word games.” To which I would say “Yes, that’s precisely the point! Why not put a stop to all the word games and just see the truth directly?” To do so, we cannot choose between this and that. We must abide in a choiceless awareness. We must dwell in this present moment, and simply see what’s really happening, without conceptualizing it in any way. Do not try to put it into words. Do not try to make sense of it. And do not try to save yourself within it. Why do we resist? In the realm of what is, there are no obstructions. There are no real conflicts, just as there are no real opposites. But our very sense of self is caught up in the game of opposites. We feel that in order to exist and not lose our minds, we must identify with this or that thing or idea or concept. And every thought we make real, every concept we believe in, blinds us from the truth. This is the real meaning behind the gospel saying that “whoever would save his life will lose it.” There is a certain letting go of knowing anything that must happen before the truth can be known. But whoever knows this truth will be free.

This is it: there is nothing to hang on to. Let me say that again. In this whole universe, there is absolutely nothing you can hang on to. Even this idea cannot be clung to. No possession, no idea, no ideology, no concept, no belief, no inner state or experience, no outer circumstance, no relationship, no person, absolutely nothing will hold up. It may seem as if you can cling to this or that, but if you really look closely you’ll find it has no substance beyond a temporary, relative sense.

you cannot nail a spike in the sky. And it’s all sky! It is all a weaving of smoke, through and through. Anything you can possibly think of to explain it all or describe it is already an illusion. Any attempt to grasp hold of it and you will instantly lose it.

Almost everyone has things they are clinging to, especially ideas. Some of them may be very obvious, while others may be so subtle, or so taken for granted, that you are unaware of what they are. Examine everything you believe, every idea or presupposition you have when making a decision or thinking about anything. Get right down to the bottom of it and ask yourself: what can you really say for certain? Most of us believe in something because we are looking for some stable position upon which to base our life and thoughts. We’re looking to ground ourselves, our feelings, or our ideas. We are looking for some sense of security, for some safety in a seemingly dangerous and chaotic world. But if you look deep, with absolute courage and honesty, you will see there is no ground and there is no center … at least none that you do not create. This kind of talk makes some people very uneasy. If I say “There is absolutely no security, no safety to be found anywhere, and any attempt to grasp for it is a delusion which will create suffering,” some people are not going be very satisfied with that. They might ask “What do you hold on to then?” To which I would say “Why do you feel you need to hold on to something?” They might say “What purpose does life have then?” To which I would say “Why do you feel life needs a purpose?” They might declare “That’s just nihilism.” To which I would say “Why cling to such a negative idea?” It all comes back to our attachments. An inquiry like this could go on and on. In fact, these types of questions and answers form a large part of some spiritual paths. The basic idea is to root out and demolish every position the student may cling to, every idea upon which they may try to base some concept or argument. If this goes on long enough, the student may begin to realize the futility of taking any position. Even longer, and the student may finally stop grasping. At that moment there is a chance to see through it all and realize enlightenment.

Hope Is More Tenacious Than Fear

While up there, I tore a 3x5 notecard in half. On one half of the card I wrote HOPE, and on the other half I wrote FEAR. I put the hope card under the heel of the insole in my right shoe, and I put the fear card under the heel of the insole in my left shoe, with the idea that I would be stomping these things out of my life. I said to myself, “I will know when to take these out.” Then I put my shoes back on, went down the mountain, and went about my life.

On some level I realized hope and fear were somehow fundamental to all the problems in my life. And I would suggest it’s probably true in most people’s lives. So let’s go into it a little.

You might argue that fear has some benefits. How would we learn from the past if we had no fear of repeating our mistakes? When you were young, for example, you may have gotten burned and now your fear of fire keeps you from putting your hand in a flame. But that is not really fear. Unless you have a phobia or past trauma resulting in a psychological fear of fire, you are not really afraid of fire. You simply know that if you put your hand in the flame you will get burned, and you would rather not get burned so you don’t put your hand there. That’s intelligence in action, not fear in the way I am using the word.

In an emergency situation, if one acts immediately, without hesitation, there is no time for fear to arise. In this present moment, unbound by time, we are all absolutely fearless.

is what makes life worth living. You have to have some hope! But do you really? Hope is not what makes life worth living. Hope is what keeps us from really living our lives. Let me explain. What is hope? It is the opposite of fear. You project yourself into the future, imagine something good, and desire it.

In my life, I had hoped to become a successful writer. For many years, this was a powerful motivation for work. I worked and worked at writing, always hoping some day a big success would come. There’s no doubt that hope can be a powerful motivator. But I was also constantly frustrated by circumstances. I had to pay the bills. I didn’t have enough time. And I was afraid that I had somehow wasted my life and my chance for happiness, because there was good chance I would never be successful. Hope is like the carrot you dangle in front of a mule. You project a happier version of yourself into the future, but no matter how far you go, your happiness is still out there ahead of you somewhere.

But the thing is, there’s something we don’t yet see while still bound up in hopes and fears. And we cannot see it until we wake up from those thought-projected illusions. When that happens, when we really let go and there is no more hope to hang onto, suddenly we realize there is nothing missing. One feels no lack at all. Instead, everything is present. There is no need to hang on to hope. One’s deepest hopes are here already.

THOUGHT-PROJECTED EXPERIENCE The usual experience is a thought-projected experience. To experience oneself as a separate “I” contained within a body, cut off and distinct from an outside world, moving through time between birth and death, is an experience created by the repetition of conditioned thoughts.

WORLD AS CONCEPT However you conceive of the world, it is likely to be deeply embedded in your projected ideas about yourself, others, and the phenomena around you. The predominant world concept these days is that of a physical, material, mechanistic universe. This concept may be so deeply embedded in your thoughts that it is taken for granted as fundamentally real. This idea of the world, though, is only that: a concept of what is and how things work. Our sensation of the world as a physical, material, mechanistic experience is a thought-projected experience. Again, it’s easy to misconstrue all this as a simple negation of the physical world, but that’s not the point. The point is that the world as it is conceptualized is different from the world just as it is. In the same way that the word water cannot quench your thirst, concepts of the world cannot satisfy our inmost feelings. This is not about saying any particular concept of the world is right or wrong. We could just as easily conceive of the world some other way. For example, we could conceive of it as a mental construct, like a dream, in the mind of a god-like being. We could conceive of it as a simulation running in a giant supercomputer or an artifact created by alien gods. We could conceive of it as a vast self-generating organism. We could conceive of it as pure consciousness, or pure information, or pure energy.

This idea of the world, though, is only that: a concept of what is and how things work. Our sensation of the world as a physical, material, mechanistic experience is a thought-projected experience. Again, it’s easy to misconstrue all this as a simple negation of the physical world, but that’s not the point. The point is that the world as it is conceptualized is different from the world just as it is. In the same way that the word water cannot quench your thirst, concepts of the world cannot satisfy our inmost feelings. This is not about saying any particular concept of the world is right or wrong. We could just as easily conceive of the world some other way. For example, we could conceive of it as a mental construct, like a dream, in the mind of a god-like being. We could conceive of it as a simulation running in a giant supercomputer or an artifact created by alien gods. We could conceive of it as a vast self-generating organism. We could conceive of it as pure consciousness, or pure information, or pure energy.

The world is actually not any of these things. It is not physical. It is not mental. It is not spiritual. It is not mechanistic, logical, chaotic, dumb, energetic, or intelligent. These are all ideas you can grasp onto, but the world is not an idea. It is just as it is and nothing else. And yes, this may sound ridiculously simple. But the moment we start to conceptualize it, we are creating a symbolic projection based on an idea, lodged in our sense of self and other, past and future, and ten thousand other things. And as long as we abide in a conceptual paradigm of any kind, we will continue to be lost in the complexities of thought and illusion.

THE TRANSPARENT MIND Before awakening, the mind is a seemingly endless stream of obsessive thoughts. We cling to these thoughts and identify with them. We call them our thoughts, and we reaffirm our sense of self by believing them. After all, we are the thinker of our thoughts, right? If our thoughts are real in some sense, we also must be real.

Many people are so identified with their thoughts that the idea of looking beyond them to the consciousness in which they appear simply never occurs to them. Furthermore, because the ego-self references the continuity of these thoughts, they are ever grasping at the next one, whatever it is, to maintain this thought-based sense of self. And so they are constantly lost in streams of thought.

Soon we latch onto thoughts about those problems. They too get incorporated into the ego, and the problems themselves become part of our identity. Then come thoughts about our thoughts about our problems, and pretty soon we’re in an incredible tangle. But it’s our tangle, so we stick with it, hoping the next thought will sort it out.

When we see that these thoughts are like wisps of smoke forming and vanishing in the clarity of consciousness, we are already close to the truth. There is no thinker of these thoughts, and no self to cling to them. They are only thoughts, appearing against a backdrop of pure consciousness. In meditation, many people can see this for themselves. But however it happens, prior to awakening, the process of continually identifying with our thoughts must come to an end.

The clarity of pure consciousness is seen through each thought that arises. And in the place of that former tangle of self-obsessive thoughts, there is timeless awareness without subject or object, the presence of an incredible and mysterious beauty, and the ebb and flow of bliss.

The Transparent Body

The feeling we have that we are in our bodies, contained somehow within our skin, is a habit created by social conditioning and a combination of mind activity, muscular tension, and various movements within the body. As we go through life, sensations, thoughts, emotions, and nerve impulses create patterns of tension and energy in the body. This creates an overall sensation pattern, which we then identify with. Identification with this pattern, in turn, creates more thoughts and emotions, deepening the sense that we are somehow in the body. You can work it out yourself by observing carefully your reactions to various sensations, thoughts, and emotions, and by identifying the unconscious patterns of tension and movement in the body.

To a certain extent, that’s all perfectly normal. Over time, however, patterns of chronic tension can lead to a variety of physical dysfunctions, decreased mobility, and health problems. The emotional traumas we hold on to can likewise become unbearable. And yet we find ourselves unable to let go of them. You end up like a person who is carrying around a boulder, but refuses to let go of it. The boulder has become a part of you. To lose it would feel like losing yourself. Who would you be without it? Anybody who has had an addiction may know this feeling. Well, the fact of the matter is, you’re addicted to your self.

There will be no inside or outside anymore. You may still have old patterns of tension residing in the body, but you will no longer identify with them. The body becomes continuous with everything around it, and you will realize that sensations, injuries and illnesses, aging and death, are part of the very process from which the universe unfolds. The body will be transparent. You will feel the winds of the cosmos blowing through it, and will know that wind and body are one.

EMOTIONAL ALCHEMY The medieval subject of alchemy concerned itself with the search for a way to transmute base metals into gold. While this transmutation didn’t really pan out in the modern science of chemistry, there is a metaphorical aspect to alchemy which is still relevant to discussions of spiritual transformation. Just as amorphous black carbon, when exposed to immense heat and pressure, can transform into a transparent diamond, so too can delusion and ignorance, when exposed to the light of awareness, be transformed into awakening and enlightenment. Such transformations can be especially helpful when encountering a variety of negative thoughts and emotions — from anxiety, fear, and anger, to jealousy, greed, and regret. Even negative physical sensations such as discomfort and pain can be transformed this way. Whatever comes up can be transmuted through direct exposure to your conscious awareness.

In that moment, rage appeared, welling up out of nowhere. But instead of being overwhelmed by it, I looked at it. I cannot describe it any other way … I just gazed directly into my rage. And when I did, it transformed into absolute clarity. There was no rage anymore. There was only clarity, but it was not clarity of anything — it was just pure clarity.

If you can look directly at your negative emotions without identifying with them, you will see for yourself what they turn into. When a negative emotion arises, either in response to a thought or environmental stimulus, do not fight it. Pushing it away or struggling with it only empowers the emotion and reinforces the ego to which it attaches. Instead, experience the emotion fully. Try to gaze directly into it.

REMEMBER WHERE WE’RE HEADING It’s easy to feel lost and disoriented when we encounter these kinds of ideas. They don’t always seem logical, and they are not aimed at the kind of knowledge that can be accumulated or understood in the way we’re used to. It’s tempting to feel like we have to somehow remember all this, and when we have insights or figure something out, it’s tempting to feel like we have to figure it all out in a way that makes sense to our minds. But nothing could be further from the truth. The purpose of this discussion is not to give you anything. In this journey, there is little point in accumulating the kind of knowledge you can memorize, categorize, integrate, or file away for some imagined future use. Remember, what we’re talking about is always present, here and now, and fundamentally cannot be grasped or put into words. The purpose of this discussion is to help you realize that for yourself. Transcendent wisdom is possible, but it cannot be conveyed or given to you. Your true nature is already your true nature. In this sense you are already enlightened; you just haven’t realized it.

Instead, we must remove everything, as if taking off the garments of our imagined reality, until we stand naked before the truth. So the purpose here is simply to point toward that, and to provoke inquiry into anything that lies in the way. As such, it is far better to ask questions than to come to conclusions. What does it mean to be attached to an idea, a belief, or a concept? What are you holding on to? Who is holding on? How can you let go? When it comes right down to it, what are you … really? Beyond what you’ve been told and what you think and believe, what is this experience that is happening? What is beyond all thought? What can you really say is true? Don’t be discouraged if you don’t know the answers. Abide in unknowing. Do not dismiss the questions by fitting them into some conceptual system of understanding. Do not believe any readily available answer. Do not seek the safety of assurance, or to ground yourself in anything. We are going to a place where there is no ground.

THERE IS NO EXPLANATION When the truth is plain to see, no explanation is necessary. The truth requires neither proof nor belief, because it is that which, when found, is entirely self-evident. The final realization, however, simply cannot be explained. Why is that? Explanations are tools of the mind, used to coordinate collections of concepts and symbols in such a way as to create some functionality, or to create new concepts and symbols. However, it is a big mistake to think that an explanation is reality, or that only what can be explained has any reality.

Whatever you think you know, imagine for a moment that it is all wrong. Imagine you have absolute assurance that every concept you hold, every explanation you grasp, is incorrect, inadequate, and insignificant. But there is nothing to replace your ideas with. Anything you’ve ever heard and anything you can think of is also wrong. After digesting this a little, turn your attention to what you are actually aware of, right in this moment. Now, what is it that you are experiencing? Resist the desire to latch on to any new explanations. They are wrong too! What is beyond all explanation?

NO NEED NO WANT When you’ve spent half a lifetime desiring, it is indeed startling to suddenly have no desire. I spent a lot of time wanting things to be different than they were, and being frustrated by situations in my life. I wanted success, fame, happiness, love, understanding, sex, health, material pleasures, profound suffering, personal heroism, and spiritual fulfillment. I wanted more sleep too, and more time, less junk mail, fewer bills … so many things I couldn’t even name them all. I wanted to be everyone. I wanted to live every life. I wanted to fall in love with every woman. And I was constantly frustrated by the feeling of some lack. Even when the objects of desire were present, there was always more desire. There was never any real end to it. And there never could be.

Eventually, when your search finally comes to an end, you are united with your true being. Then an enormous feeling of relief washes over you. There is nothing more to figure out — nothing to seek. Enjoyment of the present does not cease. In fact, you are enjoying the present and everything in it as you never have before. However, there is nothing more to want, no feeling of need, and no frustration of ongoing desires. You completely accept this moment as it is, and you are at peace.

If you have an extreme fear of flying, I don’t necessarily recommend it on your next flight, but maybe you see the point. If you have any fear of death, ask yourself: what are you afraid of? Imagine it happening, and observe your thoughts and emotions closely. You may discover what you’re really afraid of is not death, which is unknown to you, but rather something else, like pain, or leaving something undone, or leaving behind loved ones, or losing your life, or not having fully lived your life.

And in the nondual reality between life and death, you will discover the secret of immortality.

The secret of immortality is just a matter of identification. So long as you identify with a sense of self — clinging to memories, thoughts, and emotions, to the illusion of the ego, to past and future, to mind and body — death will be real to you. But when you finally see through these things, freeing your awareness from identification and distinction, death has no hold over you.

I can’t imagine anything outside of everything. God is not some distant being in another realm; it is this being. This very experience that you are having is the divine experience. There is nothing that is not it.

A person living in a state of delusion will cling to that delusion as if their very life and sanity depended on it. And in a way, from their point of view, it does. Any thought that challenges the validity of the ego-self, any glimpse into a reality beyond it, may be met with extreme unconscious resistance. Seeing totally through the ego-self means the end of it. You will no longer be able to believe in that entity, or seek any satisfaction through it. A person may sense the infinite being beyond the ego-self — and even long for it — but that very self, formed through attachment, cannot let go. The ego perceives letting go as self-annihilation or insanity and will perpetuate its cycle of attachment as long as possible.

This fear of enlightenment may manifest in many ways, from the most dramatic to the most subtle and mundane, depending on your thoughts and your state of awareness. You may long for awakening, but at the same time experience a deeply-rooted resistance to it, sensing it requires the end of your self. If you experience this fear in any form, try not to resist it, deny it, or struggle with it. Instead, look directly at your fear, and thus see with clarity that it is simply a sensation arising within consciousness. There is truly nothing to be afraid of. The end of the self seems very real while you are in the grips of delusion, but beyond it one realizes there was never really any self to die away.

There, I came across these lines from Rumi: Footprints come to the Ocean’s shore. Therein, no trace remains.

That person that I had been for all those years, and everything about him that made him seem real, had really vanished. He had been nothing more than footsteps leading to this ocean’s shore. I wept as one weeps at the passing of a loved one, mourning the loss of their qualities, both good and bad, at their familiar presence, at their endearing and troublesome quirks, at their particular tangle of thoughts and concerns. But simultaneously, I wept with joy at the beauty of it all, in the bliss of that ocean to which we return.

It’s very simple. If we cling to thoughts, if we cling to things and believe in them, they will shape our reality, and that’s all we will ever see. We will never see beyond them. Should we catch a glimpse of nothing, we will pass right over it as we sit admiring the precious things we cling to, or as we reach for the next thought or the next thing to grab hold of.

Become nobody … become nothing … and you will see: it is from this nothing that all things have their origin.

To say suffering is acceptable is not quite right, but good and evil arise mutually, and it is clear that everything is happening according to the way things happen. In that sense everything is perfect. An evil man is not evil because he is thinking clearly. He is evil precisely because he is deluded. And to the extent of his delusions and his desires, he will suffer and cause suffering. To remove delusion is to relieve suffering, on whatever level. In the absence of delusion, joy is present and compassion flourishes. Jesus was not kidding around when he said to love your enemies, or when he said “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But he wasn’t saying murder was acceptable, or that we should condone evil acts.

The question Why is there delusion? is somewhat like asking why is there something rather than nothing. I propose no metaphysical solutions, but for the sake of discussion let’s throw out a couple ideas and see where they take us. Nobody is really running the universe in the way that is suggested by the question. There is no big boss somewhere setting up the game and calling all the shots. If there is anyone running the universe like this, consider that you may be it. For without separation, we are the whole process of what’s going on, and that process, if we can call it that, guides everything that is, including suffering. It is only the illusion of separation that keeps us from waking up to our role in it all.

Delusion is a rather negative word. Nobody wants to think they are deluded, so this very idea can be a stumbling block that reinforces the ego. But the Sanskrit word maya, so often translated as “illusion,” can also mean “magic” or “power.” Looking at the world historically, the illusion of a separate self may have granted some benefit, socially, linguistically, or cognitively. Perhaps this illusion came with the ability to remember the past, plan for the future, and coordinate novel group and individual actions. Seen this way, the magic and power of maya becomes more clear. In this story, delusion may be a facilitative or functional illusion. But we can’t have the good without the bad. If we take all the benefits such magic grants us, we must also contend with the evil such power breeds, and all the terrible suffering created by selfish desires and misguided delusions.

In essence, the real answer cannot be explained. Everything we can say is false on some level, because the whole truth, the totality of it, cannot be bound by any conceptual framework. It is the reality upon which conceptual frameworks can arise, not the other way around. And such problems can only manifest in relation to those conceptual frameworks, not in relation to reality itself, which is beyond all things.

THE IMPORTANCE OF WAKING UP Is waking up important? Only you can answer that question. Whatever I may say will make no difference whatsoever to you, and is beside the point. If you think it’s important, then it is; if you don’t, then it isn’t. But this much I can say: when you’ve had enough, when you’re tired of pain and suffering, when you’re frustrated beyond all reason, when you can’t stand yourself or the world any longer, complete liberation is possible.

To see through the illusions of the ego and the world, and to wake up in this life is to finally see clearly. It is to simply see what’s really happening. With all delusions unveiled, you will realize this very world as the divine world, and recognize your true self as the divine Self. Bliss and beauty radiates through everything. Love and compassion take their natural course. Eternity is found in this very moment.

There is no self to be enlightened though, just as there is no self to be deluded. The ego-self and all separation is delusion. Your true nature is already the enlightenment you seek. That is the divine Self realized in awakening. It need not attain anything, for there is no lack within it. It need not seek, for it is present already.

When you first hear this, you will likely think it’s not right. There must be some way around this. Surely, with practice, you can teach yourself to relax. Surely you can train yourself to have more compassion. It may be difficult. It may take a long time. But surely you can do it! Ask yourself though, seriously, who is it that will institute these changes? Who and what, exactly, are you? Are you the anxious you, the you who says you must stop being so anxious, or are you something beyond both of these, or beyond that?

Your anxiety is produced by your desire to change yourself, by your very feeling that there is something wrong that must be changed. Your fear is a function of your desire to hold on to the self you wish to change. You are creating your problems. You do not need to do anything to change yourself, even if you could. You need only to stop creating more problems. Don’t get me wrong, real transformation is possible, transformation beyond your wildest dreams. But you cannot remove a problem with a problem. It’s like trying to clear muddy water by sweeping it with your hand. The more you sweep, the more cloudy the water becomes. What then can be done? Simply this: see that you are not the things you wish to change. Don’t try to change anything, but whatever comes up, whatever thoughts or feelings, just look at them, be present with them. Identify thoughts as thoughts, feelings as feelings, sensations as sensations. Thus you will stop identifying yourself with those thoughts, feelings, and sensations.

GATELESS GATEWAYS Everything is a gateway to awakening. Pain, grief, frustration, boredom, and suffering can be highly-effective teachers. And without delusion, there would be no self or world illusion to awaken from. So wherever you are, whatever is before you now, that is the entrance.

LEAVE EVERYTHING AS IT IS Total transformation of consciousness cannot come about by changing things or doing things. Of course, you cannot stop doing things altogether. But there’s no point in trying to transform yourself by making a bunch of changes to your life circumstances. The circumstances have nothing to do with it. And there’s no point in trying to change the world. Just stop trying to change things all together. We are constantly struggling against ourselves and the world. We are always trying to improve our situation, improve ourselves, change the world, build a better society, get rid of bad habits, be happier, improve our relationships, find new relationships, lose weight, make ourselves smarter, healthier, more compassionate, more spiritual, or whatever the case may be. But we will never be satisfied that way.

Likewise, you will never arrange the circumstances of your life or the world in such a way that everything is good, any more than you can arrange an object such that it has an upside but no downside.

Everything is constantly falling apart. There is no way to stop it. There is no ground to stand on. There is nothing to hold on to. Everything is changing already. What can anybody do but go with it?

I say strive with all your might not because you will ever achieve lasting satisfaction with such a struggle, but because eventually you may come to see the futility of it as a means to satisfaction. After all, you are only struggling with yourself. In the realm of what is, all conflicts, all struggles, are an illusion. So if you can’t escape the feeling that you need to pursue this thing, then don’t hold back. If you persist long enough, with sufficient effort, you may realize it — not when you win the struggle, but when you finally give up on winning, when you finally see through the illusion of struggle all together. This is the hidden goal behind virtually all spiritual practices — be it meditation, inquiry, prayer, or devotion — just to get to a point where you basically give up. I struggled mightily for many years, and then it ended. I didn’t win or lose, or even resolve the struggle in any way. I finally saw that my whole struggle was pointless and I gave up. Then all struggle ended.

If you try to figure all this stuff out and settle it once and for all in your mind, you will outwit yourself at every turn. That’s because it’s not a matter of intellectually understanding some set of logical arguments.

If I suggest you stop desiring, you will find yourself desiring not to desire. If I say you should have no expectation, you will work to banish every expectation from your mind, expecting something to happen when you do. If I recommend you let go of everything, you will hang on to that very idea. If I insist you get rid of the ego, you will make an ego trip out of it. If I say you must be absolutely free, you will bind yourself to this imperative.

You see, there really is no you. Or, stated another way, you are the totality of what is going on. There is no difficulty. Everything is perfectly clear.

Voluntary And Involuntary

Can you predict what your next thought will be? What your next memory will be? When you decide to open your hand or close your hand, how do you decide? Do you decide to decide, or do you just do it? In the present moment, without the involvement of time, memory, or recursive thoughts, it all just happens. A decision happens. The hand opens. It is only because, through conditioning, we identify with certain processes, such as thinking, deciding, and moving, that they seem voluntary to us. We have created our identity out of those things, so naturally we take credit for them. Have you noticed that when things go well for people, when they are successful, they tend to take credit for it? They are successful because they’re hard working, smart, tough, and disciplined. But when things don’t go well, even for the very same people, they often claim outside circumstances are responsible. This very natural tendency is simply a way of bolstering the ego, of solidifying and protecting one’s identity. It happens simply by shifting this boundary between what you do and what happens to you. In fact, it could be said that this is the boundary of the ego.

When you cease to identify with the time-bound ego, you are confronted with the present moment — this singular grand unfolding process — and since you are still aware, what else could you be but that? You are the sun shining and the trees growing. You are the clouds moving and the rain falling. You’re doing it all. You don’t know how you’re doing it, but you’re doing it.

I fell deeply in love several times in my life, but these relationships dissolved in tumultuous or mundane circumstances, or else crumbled beneath the impossible weight of my own romantic ideas and selfish desires. Finally, I set myself the task of somehow becoming a successful writer. It was a goal that demanded sacrifices and I made them. For many years I worked at writing with dogged determination, and with very little by way of recognition, encouragement, or financial reward.

When I consider all this, one thing becomes clear. There is a kind of thread that runs through all the various twists and turns. I was on quest to understand myself, to figure out the mysteries of life and the world, to acquire mastery over them, to express my deepest thoughts and feelings, to attain true love, truth, and exaltation … which is perhaps to say, redemption, salvation, and liberation.

You may face many twists and turns, and great difficulties upon this quest, but the fruits of its reward reveal the blessings of an infinite grace.

There is no way to know for sure where someone is in this process, since there are no steps, no levels, no signs, no gradations — no path. The process itself is a maze of confusion. It is itself the Gordian knot of delusion that must at last be severed. When the sword of truth finally cuts through that knot, however, it must happen instantaneously. Why? Because time itself is part of the delusion, and the awakened state is a timeless state. When you finally see through all delusion, there is no past or future anymore. So there is no room for gradual progress, or any progress at all for that matter. There is only now. And for this reason, awakening must be sudden. Ultimately, awakening can never happen in the future, which is only imaginary. All such notions are simply putting it off. It can only happen now.

DARK NIGHT You may come to a place when all the things that gave a sense of meaning to your life no longer do. You no longer believe in whatever you had believed in. All conceptual understanding, all philosophies, all models of reality seem vacuous. All systems of thought appear, at last, inadequate, and you are left with the raw experiences of a seemingly meaningless life, day after day, year after year until you die. It all feels hollow, worthless. And no matter how you try to conjure some meaning back into it, to restoke the fire of belief once more, it proves futile. This could be brought on by the failure of a relentless inquiry, the collapse of some belief system, or a sudden unexpected loss of something which gave great meaning to your life. The loss of a loved one, for example, a catastrophic injury, failing health, or financial ruin. And while this dark night can manifest as a kind of depression, it is really a spiritual, existential crisis. All conceptual frameworks for making sense of life and all internal stories for making sense of the self have ceased to be meaningful. But you have not yet let go, so the fruits of transformed consciousness

cannot be experienced. Instead you are filled with a kind of dread, which you must cope with, one way or another.

There is nobody to become. The dark night is a kind of purgatory, in the interstices between life, death, transformation, and rebirth. Already there is nothing that is not God, but here at last we recognize it through and through. The final separation dissolves, and the truth is realized. You and everything you perceive are already one with God.

Seeing through the illusion of the ego and the complete emptying of the self is only part of it. When identification with the ego ceases, there is suddenly no seer or thinker or doer. There is consciousness, but because there is no identification with the ego, the self cannot be located, and there is no inside or outside anymore. Without a subject, subject-object duality collapses, and there is no longer any separation between you and what you perceive. And still, that is only part of it. One also realizes that just as the self is an empty illusion, so is everything else! The body, the mind, the trees, time and space, the moon and stars, the whole universe and everything in it are as illusory as the ego. There is consciousness itself — whatever that is — but without any subject or objects. All things perceived are but empty forms arising in this one being. And with this complete realization, our eyes open to reality, to the divine eternal happening.

SHORT ANSWERS ABOUT ENLIGHTENMENT Q: Do you really consider yourself enlightened? A: The short answer is yes. Why mince words? People should know in no uncertain terms that liberation is possible. On the other hand, some people will debate such an answer to the point of distraction, so I must point out the following. First, no one — no individual ego-self — becomes enlightened. Second, enlightenment as one thinks about it is just an idea, and clinging to such ideas is the very source of delusion. The truth lies beyond all ideas, beyond all experiences, and beyond all states. I am as I am. And when that is the case, there is nothing to debate.

Q: What does it mean to have no self? A: What we think of as a self is an aggregate of various things, such as sensations, memories, thoughts, and so on. The coordination and repetition of these things creates the illusion of a separate and independent entity. Through belief in the illusion and identification with it, both of which are also things within the aggregate, one has a self. To have no self is to see directly through all of it to the emptiness within. It is a radical departure from any point of view. It is to recognize no limits. It is to go beyond beyond. The raw ingredients of a self may still be present, but from within, one disappears. The coordination and repetition of the elements no longer creates the illusion of a separate or independent entity. Belief and identification cease. Therefore, from the non-position of no-self, there are no other selves either. There are no separate beings. There are no things or events. In this sense, there are not even any thoughts. All of this is illusion, like the self.

Q: Do you still have preferences? A: Of course, but I see them for what they are. The personality and its preferences are not utterly destroyed, only the sense that they constitute a separate self. Accordingly some preferences may disappear, but various thoughts and impulses still arise and some preferences may remain. However,…

Q: How do you make choices? A: How does anyone make choices? It’s a great mystery if you look into it. You’re lying in bed in the morning. At some point you decide to get up. How did you decide? Did you decide to decide? You may have a series of thoughts about it, but at some point you just get up. Enlightened persons don’t do things any…

Q: What motivates your actions? A: Look around you. Everything you see, everything that is unfolding before your eyes … it’s all just happening. The wind in the trees, the waves on the shore, the gathering clouds, the buildings going up, the cars breaking down, it’s all motivated by the same process, whatever you want to call it. People are no different. My actions are motivated by that which motivates everything. These words, for…

Q: Can you be distracted? A: The question presupposes there is something to be distracted from. An ego-self gets wrapped up in thoughts of what it should be doing or thinking. It is bound in time, lost in thoughts — in memories and predictions — reflecting on the myriad things it wants and fears. But whatever is happening is what’s happening. When you see that,…

Q: How long will it take? A: It will take no time at all, once it has happened. Before that, it depends on what, how, and from when you are counting. It’s not a race, and there is no model to conform to. For there is never a time when you are not your true nature. The ego and individual self are always bound in time, but the eternal Self is always present. To…

Q: If we are already our true nature why make any effort at all? A: This seems like a contradiction, but let’s not make it more complicated than it is. Of course, the truth is always present and always with you. You are always That. However, have you realized your own perfection? Until we have realized oneness, some effort is required by the situation we find ourselves in. In short, until effortlessness is realized, effort is…

Q: Are spiritual practices necessary? A: It depends on what you mean by spiritual practices. We are all doing spiritual practices already, whether we know it or not. Everything in life is such a practice. In this sense, some kind of practice is not only necessary but unavoidable. Nevertheless, there is no specific practice that is absolutely necessary. But don’t let this be an excuse. It doesn’t let anybody off the hook, and dedicated skillful practice can bring one to the doorstep of awakening. So it is more important to remember the…

Is a teacher necessary? A: Again, it depends on what you mean by teacher. If you just mean a teacher in form of a living person, then no, that is not absolutely necessary. Such a teacher could be invaluable. Just to be in the presence of an enlightened teacher can prompt awakening, even if no instruction is given and the effect is beyond our understanding. But all teachers, enlightened or not, can be considered something more than a person. Before realization, something is leading us back to the source of everything. And in the end, something beyond the ego-self is needed for realization to occur. What is it that leads us back and facilitates our return? If that is the teacher we’re talking about, then it is absolutely…

How will I know if it happens? A: The truth leaves no room for doubts. Fundamentally you will have no more questions. Your search will be over. You might try looking for something else, something more, something that you felt you once missed, but there will be nothing else, nothing more. It will be clear. You will not be able to…

Will I lose myself? A: You fear annihilation of the self, but that self has never been anything more than an illusion. In this sense, there is no real self to lose. In awakening you will lose the illusion that you had a…

the world as you thought it was will end. But have no fear. Nobody will lose it, and in the end…

Q: If I really let go, what will keep me from becoming a bad person? A: That which we fear might take over if we were to let go of the self is nothing other than an aspect of the self. The ego is a tangle of conflicting voices, desires, and impulses. To maintain our conduct and good view of ourselves, some aspects of the self are suppressed while others are encouraged. Letting go does not give these voices free reign, nor must they be constantly held in check, because one sees clearly that none of them were real to begin with. They are all functions of the stories and beliefs that compose the conditioned mind. So you would never be subjected to…

Q: Is everything just in my mind? A: Many people run into this idea of solipsism, that knowledge is limited to what’s in your head or your mind. At a certain point this kind of teaching may be appropriate, but all teachings function only as course corrections. The idea that everything is in your head is meant to correct the assumption that some things aren’t. But it is not the whole picture, as no teaching or philosophy ever can be. If everything is in your head, you must then ask yourself, in what context does your head appear? If everything is in the mind, from where does the mind arise? Part of the confusion comes from the notion that it is your head or your mind, let alone that there are heads or minds at all. Solipsism assumes there is an individual self, an owner of heads and minds whose knowledge is limited by them. However, the spiritual path leads to selflessness, not just in thought and action,…

Q: Can one be attached to nonattachment? A: Yes, that’s basically nihilism, which is itself a particularly tenacious belief system. It’s a kind of trap that can happen when one attempts to approach the truth intellectually but with the ego strong and intact. If one falls into nihilism and can’t retreat, take it through to its logical conclusion. The ultimate nihilist must completely negate…

Q: Couldn’t enlightenment just be a rare mental state, brain condition, or even a benign psychological disorder? A: From a particular point of view one could say something like that, but when found, the truth itself is inescapable. No doubts can remain. It is not a state, condition, or disorder, for it does not arise within the mind or body. Instead, the mind and body arise within it. The mind and body come and go, whereas it is eternally present. As long as consciousness remains identified with the mind or body, one cannot understand this. When consciousness is liberated from identification, the truth becomes clear, and no doubts can remain. Consider that even now your doubts cannot be sustained, since such thoughts will come and go, and you will have…