The Astounding Nature of Experience

(Adulthood as substituting thought for direct experience)

Introduction               “A dulthood” in our culture begins fairly early on - between the ages 7 to 10 according to developmental psychologist Jean Piaget - as we learn to substitute mental activity for actual sensory experience. This is also a viable description of what the loss of innocence consists of, and is arguably a good working definition of insanity.   I can safely bet that fantasy, interpretation and preoccupation are deeply ingrained habits of yours, and certainly of the culture - habits hard to see let alone break. This results in a sense of things being separate, static, solid, mundane, normal, a little dull, known - with perhaps a bit of anxiety lurking at “the edges”, as well as a preoccupation with circumstances.   Unfortunately, this is an understatement.

It would be accurate to say that these pages are about turning the process of “adulthood” around: substituting actual sensory experience for mental activity (which actually is a sensory experience too).

And if you find yourself just getting more into your head, screw the book and go do something fun.

(Experience as the primary entity, feeling as inquiry)

Your experience is, and this is-ness is felt, it permeates.

Experience is the entity, not me. And everything is in experience.     Feeling is the inquiry.     Q. Where is the life force, the sun, presence, the present, coming from? A. From you. You ARE this, surf it. It is doing itself. This, right here, is the breaking wave of this astounding radiance. It is not inert. It has no downtime.

If you start with “everything’s a mystery”, you don’t get the known as a result. The staleness of the “known” is an illusion. Unexpectedness is this life – it is unpredictable and spontaneous.

(Clarity, not fixing: the prime fact is presence)

There’s nothing to get and nothing to fix. There are facts, but not problems. Neurosis and insanity show up in the effortless clarity, the effortless   sense of you. Solutions aren’t needed. There is a loss of a sense of urgency, loss of a sense of lack, loss of neediness. Nothing has to be addressed. The clarity is profound that everything shows up in. Look at what’s looking at the world. The prime fact is clarity.   “I” is not a little piece of the puzzle, it’s the fucking table the puzzle is on. It’s a matter of appreciating this fact. It is not a little factor, it is the ultimate factor.   Notice you’re always hanging out in being. Being itself is juicy, it doesn’t need embellishment. This is not about getting new information, but new priorities. You can still seek experiences but without the desperation.

You understand through participation, not analysis.   What this already inherently is, is the kicker. You can’t not have that, it is an absolute given. All the pressure is off. That’s freedom.

“It” is already doing everything – no faith is needed, it is self-verifyingly obvious.

(Full expression, not failed expression: loss of self-importance)

You are not a failed expression of the infinite, you are already a full expression of it. Notice what you are already. Unrealization = exaggerated self-importance. Liberation is not the loss of ego, but the loss of self-importance.

You can deconstruct problematic reactions just by entertaining the notion, “I am reacting to a fantasy”. Do this with small reactions first. Deconstruct where it is easy. Then you will have more resources when swamped by bigger reactions. And don’t worry about it when you are swamped.

Experience radiance [the dynamism of everything arising] as nakedly as you can. The nature of this realization [of radiance] is independent of causality – there are no circumstantial needs for this to occur. True revelation is an ongoing, a bottomless freefall.

San Rafael, Feb 19, 2011   Movie on screen (“objective” world) → light goes through dust in air→ light out of projector (primal radiance) - all the same event, just different read outs. “I am moving my hands” = radiant energy moving through infinity. Seeing this = “Acquiring the extent of your body”.   What to notice: the ongoing weirdness, open-endedness, and indefinability of experience.

(Reality does itself: the present as inherent noticing)

Reality is unstable, dreamlike, infinite – not knowable. If you think you do know it, you’re in imagination. There is no solution in imagination. The fundamental problem: Holding things to be a certain way.   Reality does itself, no work is involved.   The present exists as a noticing. It is an inherent unstoppable noticing, and it can notice itself noticing.   Thoughts happen in context of non-thought, like objects in space.

It’s not that problems aren’t happening, but that they are small. To take something head-on feeds it, gives it importance. Immaturity looks like tunnel vision and gullibility.  What’s outside it? We are already always outside it. It is weird that there is always more, you can never be trapped.   The energy rush is inherent when you plug in, not something you need to generate.

Reality functions, not ”you”. What is doing this?? “No responsibility” – seeing this is the short path. When waking up in the morning confused: it’s doing itself, let it play. Getting sucked into the problem is the seduction of Shakti.

(Integration runs one way: new absorbs old, not the reverse)

The dilemma of integration: the new can integrate the old, but the old can’t integrate the new.

Forcing the issue is defeating and counterproductive, and energizes the personal mind. Treat “me”, treat the old perspective like a child – be nice, let it be free, give it candy. Be kind and carefree and gentle with yourself. Grace is available because THIS is miraculous – it can do the impossible! Just go to the openness, the miraculous. It can mix the personal and the infinite. Rules and logic do not apply.  The WOW is the normalcy.

Resistance is always to a fantasy. A more spontaneous engaged stance would be: Circumstances are freedom because they are undefinable.   Circumstances and I both arise spontaneously - it’s all now, there’s no delay, and there is no residue. Anything else is fantasy. It is all one event emerging spontaneously. Nothing departs from here, even fantasy, because it’s happening here. The spontaneous flow of events is doing itself. It leaves no residue, it is finished.   True knowing is not knowing, it is an aliveness.   The event itself is a knowing. Even thought is spontaneous radiance.   Let experience be more open-ended, without definition. We really don’t know what’s going on - we don’t have to adopt this as a strategy!

Just like in boxing, you operate from experience rather than fantasy or holding things to be a certain way (it’s a disaster if you think you know what’ll happen!). You just respond, you don’t know how things are. Control, safety, and predictability are delusions.

Not knowing where you are can feel secure because there is nothing to lose. When you recognize the fact of indeterminacy, it sort of opens you to tune into all sorts of subtle unnamable aspects and dimensions of experience. There are no stiff solid things. Experience becomes very present, detailed, huge, and vital - full of vague nuances.

Things are never secure. What generates circumstances and sees circumstances is secure. I am still here. Nothing is ever the same. Circumstances are always different. But my being is exactly the same. There is no gain, and no loss.

The void is made of light and bliss (this is irrelevant till you go through it).

(Experience as ground state, independent of circumstances)

Security is found in experience, not in circumstance or any kind of stasis. Experience is not dependent on circumstances (which is our “normal” view). Experience is the ground state, the context of circumstances. We’re junkies for circumstances. Dreams are a good example:  There is no dreamer or dream, just dreaming. Dreaming is independent of, and unharmed by, the dream. The monster doesn’t affect the dreaming.

I alone exist as a field of experience. Objects don’t exist, they only exist as an experience. And, experience doesn’t come in parts.

A. An endless non-repetitive experience, a never-ending more. The mind creates a conscious amnesia, it creates continuity, object constancy (which is a successful denial of what’s actually going on). Continuity [supplied by interpretation] is imaginary. [The content of] Experiencing is always unique, always a non-continuity. The root of the whole tree is experience, not circumstance. It is foreground. The house can fall down, experience still goes on. “Stan is experiencing” is the main headline. Everything else is small potatoes. Experience is generating the small potatoes. Mysterious experiencing, it is the bedrock, the root fact.

The fundamental event is now - nothing is lacking, there is fullness, it is already complete, and there is nothing to fix. It is an ongoing This-ness. The value of things is in their actual presence.

The deeper realization: there is no annihilation.   Buddhist kayas, or realms that make up reality: Nirmanakaya: functional Sambhogakaya: Radiant presence Dharmakaya: Is-ness

(Easiness discovered: reality frictionless and self-doing)

There is no center, no control, and no ending. This is doing itself. End of story. Easiness is discovered, reality is effortlessly being itself. You don’t need to maintain or generate anything. It is reality. You are that ease. Reality is frictionless. What happens, happens = easy. Being “stuck” is a fantasy. Identity is a fantasy. Insanity is taking fantasy as reality (fantasy doesn’t have textural components).   All thoughts are lies. Thoughts are mirages, and our emotions are based on them.   You are a peephole the infinite looks through to see the infinite.

There is no need for urgency, it doesn’t matter.   THIS IS, is the solution, the mother lode. Feel it. Beingness. This is, and can show up in any way, shape or form. This is the paramount practice. See the beingness. It’s all “this”, no “that”. IS = beingness HERE = radiance   Dharmakaya; Beingness, clarity, the screen. Sambhogakaya: Radiant presence, blasting.

Reality (what’s actual, here) is the fuel. Staleness: Instead of battling it and trying to deconstruct it, just see you’re ignoring freshness. That’s the antidote. Freshness is so much more real! Access “points of wonder” – these are direct revelations you don’t know and can’t contrive. Discover easy access points, find your strengths in this. Become an expert at getting out of reference points – these strategies are very personal.

The solution to ego is not in ego, but in context [that ego happens in], the non-conceptual aspects of you (like go to light, sound, sensations, etc). Ego/identity is not a problem in larger experience. It’s just not particularly important – not personal.   Stories don’t obscure reality, they are small – they exist in the context of reality. The only problem is mistaking imagination/story for reality (actually there is only reality, and reality mistakes itself. Illusion is a mechanism of reality).   My consciousness/experience alone exists. …an aloneness of inclusion. “Limit” is made of infinity. We are not limited by any condition, we are always “outside” of it, like a lucid dream.

Notice what is already the case: Is-ness, the presence of present experience, the feeling of existence. You are a field of infinite light.

Experience comes to you, you don’t have to go to it. We are swamped by exprience. This is not an accident, and meaning is inherent. If you don’t grab for it, it comes to you.

Slowing down to notice can be good, but watch for solidifying and controlling, turning slowing down into a technique you apply.   Being caught-up always happens in a field of not-caught-up – both happen, stories do not stop the openness. Become more habituated to the full field of experience. Reality is always surprising.

It is all about being with this rawly from time to time, like water finding its way – it knows where to go, it doesn’t need to be shown. It’s the same with being – it finds its own way and functionality. Just be with experience, swim in it, and it does itself, corrects itself, teaches itself.   You need to discover what your lynchpin is (the thing to notice that causes the whole house of cards to collapse). My experience is real, jump into it, without holding it to be this or that. It straightens out itself.

Hating ego/normalcy/mundanity gets you stuck. Peak experience or mundane experience, nothing departs from the natural condition.

“Pretty much” the same = entirely different.   Qualifying  = you think you know. Not knowing is hugely powerful. You can’t stop judging, but this is not a problem, just see everything is beyond judging and it passes. Ignore all spiritual problems, go to what’s already open. The sun is shining, it has nothing to do with your problems. You can just go to the texture of experience. Radiance is forcefully present in experience, it comes to you, it is actively throwing itself at you. Attend to presence throwing itself at you.   You can’t fix anything, just leave it all alone, forget about it.

Awareness does not censor, it is unaffected, it is absolutely inclusive and unobstructed (see this.). It can’t be damaged.

There is an epidemic of devaluing ourselves. Seeking stimulation outside is the drug. We’re looking for something special out there, other-than-this. People think that what this is, is boring.   Being is already in full swing, it is not having to be done.   Be with experience, regardless of circumstance. Start changing over from a focus on circumstances to a focus on qualities of experience. Experience has qualities that are intrinsically surprising and interesting.  Something cool is going on in a baseline way.

Seeking is an expression of the primal force of nature. Seeking in a raw way is an undercurrent, it’s not a simple problem. Ride it down to the root, to a primal place, to primal radiance, you-ness, your voice. It is learning to be with energies in new ways, with no rules or laws.

The profound discovery is of spontaneity, that that’s all there is. It is all new, the essence of what is enjoyable. All concepts are a denial of that.   Skiing is a good analogy for the way of being with energy. That’s how you participate with spontaneity. The doing is the knowing, immediate non-conceptual knowing. Risky, edgy, devil-may-care, letting go of controlling. Like skiing, you’re on the edge, without forethought, just presence. When you are flowing, when engrossed in spontaneity, not being able to wrap your mind around what’s going on is not a problem. The trick is inclusiveness. Hatred or curiosity – these are a hurricane of energies. Surf them into reality.

It doesn’t need to be transcended because it already is transcendental, pure light, pure explosion! Absolute radiance! By stumbling into it, this transcends all technique. It is a surprise. You have to violate all your plans and expectations and strategies. You can’t strategize your way into spontaneity. Expectations do not lead to surprise.

Reality is the path to reality. The ongoing condition is the practice - settling into that kicks it into high gear. Just noticing. You don’t have to construct anything. You’ve got to pay attention, but attention is already happening. Not noticing is actually an elaborate active thing, a conceptual superstructure, and is in imagination.

Experience does not stop. Experience is radiance in consciousness. Once you notice this one thing, that’s it. You don’t need reminding, just ongoing certainty. It is really just about this simple new experience, completely self-evident, a self-verifying obvious fact. It’s a profound joke.

There is only one thing and it does not depart from itself. It is already everything. Even the habits that knock you off this perspective are part of it.

Awareness is not passive or inert – it is lively, it has dynamism.   Eternal radiance (grace, divinity) is all there is. What does that feel like right now? THIS is grace, light, radiance – always.   There is presence and it is you, but you can’t say anything about it. You’re not denying experience, it’s just that you can’t pin it down. No need to force it.

You’re not working for lucid dreaming or controlling dreams, but for non-grasping. Daytime influences dreamtime. Our energy stance is one of releasing, letting go, opening to flow and permeable-ness – that’s the death practice. Not taking things as being something = liberation. You can’t be trapped by flow, only by “stability”.

Rest in absolute openness, absolute unfindability. Fluid, open, trippy – you have already dived in, there is no such thing as not swimming around. There is no obligation - be playful, loose, unstuck, not stiff, “fuck it”!   Even when focused on one sense, see how the “background” is still present, how it is present, how it morphs.   The gestalt of the senses is the background. It is all about context.

Skype   Immediacy is already the case. You can prime the pump by being immediate, but it’s really more that you’re noticing the reality. Immediacy is the condition of experience, you can’t leave it.   There is no place where there isn’t sensation/experience. It is everywhere there is dynamism  (sensations, thoughts, background of thoughts – nothing does not exist).                                                                                                                                                 I’m looking at sloth/having it together/not having it together circumstantially. Nothing, no mode, is superior. Don’t believe my feelings in regards to it. The belief system is completely arbitrary, the assessment doesn’t matter at all. The problem is me giving it self-importance – let go that any of these modes matter. “There’s a mode happening, fuck it”, and just go to the radiance. Anxiety (or sloth) = unknown presence (that I am outside of). Unknown radiance fuels it all. There’s always vastly more than any mode. Again, I am not in it.

We just notice ourselves as infinity/ presence simultaneously – neurosis and sunlight co-exist.

Our addiction to the soap opera/self-importance /tragedies – you can’t do much about them except grow out of them – they wear off as your noticing matures. You don’t leave the conceptual, you just see that the context is non-conceptual, it is already transcendent directly. MATURITY = WHAT’S HERE IS MORE INTERESTING THAN DRAMA/THINKING/RESOLUTION.

Notice that nothing about experience is inert.

Experience is dependent on me, not vice versa. It is all in me. Literally. My experience is not a subset. Events come and go, but experience keeps on going unchanged. I am the continuum of experience. I am the field. I am here. Everything else comes and goes. I am the space everything occurs/appears in.

Dzogchen: you go looking for reality, you don’t find it, and that’s reality, that’s finding.

Even seeming solid or insubstantial, it is all still just this. It does not ever resolve to anything.   Surf the wave of miraculous ongoing disappearance.

Looking has the expectation of finding. This is not findable, which [in regards to looking and wanting to find] is literally confusing as hell.   The fantasy of resolution creates confusion.   The more you look the fuzzier it gets - see that that is finding it! You might say that confusion is the end of the path. Confusion is freedom, bliss – you’re not locked in, there is infinite openness, infinite unstuckness.

Samara means holding things to be anything. You have to be in fantasy to think you can get a hold of anything. The richness of qualities of experience are inconceivable – they are not simple, dull, finite, or limited. Details are what infinity looks like. Precision and specificity makes infinity/incoherence most explicit. Everything is morphing as you look at - it is all slipping away with infinite detail!

Become aware of context/background of experience as a gestalt, the full field as a whole. I am = a positivity, a potency.

[When doing dark meditation, sitting in a pitch black room] don’t try to penetrate the dark seeing – don’t try to get “good” at it. Let go into it. This is a direct entrance to infinity – it doesn’t “confirm” anything. You are not cultivating, it is not learning, but are a new dimension. Try to shock yourself. Go off the map. It is a discovery, it can’t be deliberate. This is a letting go into phenomena – you may stumble onto something.

Pay attention at the edges of your senses. The fuzziness is a positivity – the boundaries are a presence beyond. Make the edges primary. Positive and negative are turned around.

The freedom is in the craziness, the out of control-ness. This is not a transcendence of phenomena, it is in phenomena. Invulnerability is found in vulnerability.

Radiant energy doesn’t come and go. Life and death occur in this, not the other way around. It is not beyond space and time in metaphor, but right here. Life is not in the body, the body is in life. My being is the actual event. The sun shines because I am. Primal being is doing it all. Here-ness is the Dharmakaya. Play with here. There is nothing here but radiance. It is not dependent on anything. Here is the constant, feel here-ness, how real it is. Try to find anything more factual.

There doesn’t have a point of stability or coherence. You’ve got to be prepared for freefall, for non-coherence – the peace and joy and security is that you are this and it never departs from itself. Here-ness is not dependent on what it looks like – fear of death, pain, illness become trivial.

Me = here-ness, is-ness. There is no opposite, it is one thing - intelligent presence. I still am an entity, that doesn’t dissolve. But, it is transcendent.

Seeing the arrogant pretense of knowing is the turning point.   If you notice, you are simultaneously in deep sleep, in fantasies, floating, dreaming, as well as waking.   Everything, including the sense of I am, is already being done. There is no maintenance required.

Watch the flow of time without thinking about it. There is flow, and you are here, with no residue. It is like writing in water.   The experience of lights flashing after dreaming, and before waking up is the nature of all reality.

Any finite state exists within the infinite – they are not exclusive.

There is never an increase or a decrease in actual radiance. It is all a dynamic activity that does itself.   Radiance is instantaneous.

Phenomena have no duration. Instead, there is an instantaneous refresh rate.   There is no coherent identity, there are just seemings. Every condition solves itself, all problems are removed because nothing is solid or solidifies.   Everything is misinterpreted, and is actually unfindable radiance.

Deep being doesn’t exclude my life, it transcends my life. Switch allegiances - the “deeper self” will seduce you from the more shallow self. It is like being wooed. There is a momentum to focus on situations in our lives. We take it seriously. But that momentum and seriousness doesn’t include what you also are. However, the spiritual does include life – it is one way, i.e., shallow doesn’t include deep, but deep includes shallow.

(Realization as zero stasis: absolute dynamism always present)

Realization means finally not giving a shit. There is a complete lack of pretense, not needing things to be anything. It is letting go into simple normalcy. The flow of events become sufficient, they take care of themselves. There is zero stasis, zero continuity, absolute dynamism – this is always here, it’s not a new condition.   We are stuck in a frequency between macro to micro. The trick is to be able to see other angles simultaneously. Being with experience many different ways triangulates on reality, It primes the pump.

Q: There seems to be a difference between surrendering and noticing, passive versus active. A: There is no mode of preferred passivity. “Surrendering” to actuality includes non-surrendered modes.

(Developing subtlety: intuition of the magical realm always here)

We are developing new senses, more and more subtlety, a whole new range of experience opens up. Any headway is profound. This is an appreciation of fineness, delicacy, a higher frequency. It is being with experience in a delicate way. It is subtle in frequency, but not subtle in astoundingness. It is self-verifying and it guides us. And, it is obvious. It is the intuition of Sambhogakaya. [Buddhist term denoting the magical realm that is always here. Causality is out the window. Nirmanakaya, the physical world, is like a dream. Sambhogakaya is the dreamer.] It is always meeting presence as presence, and letting it open as it is - letting go and falling into experience. This is all radiance, a field of light. Because of that, there are no hard choices, it is all happening, and there is nothing to avoid.

There is a stage you go through where clarity is separate from the content of circumstances.   The focus of our attention runs around like a drunk cameraman – there is no angle more “real” than another. “Sameness” is the next stage after the ground of clarity is seen. Zooming in and out, into and out of focus, never departs from clarity. There is no preferred reference point.

unknown.   See how we hold ourselves in regards to experience, and try being with energy in new and spontaneous ways. Notice at the subtle energy level of how we relate. Be direct with experience, be naked and raw. Let yourself discover more continually - continually letting go, relaxing, unknowing, very present, high resolution, and into subtlety. We are retraining ourselves to see on a more subtle nuanced level. And again, being with nuance and detail is not pushing on it, but it’s relaxing into it, letting go into it.

It is always other than what you think it is, always more, always continual revelation forever. Through investigation, we develop a confidence and a trust that we don’t have a handle on things and can’t get a handle on things! We are our field of experience.

Let it seduce you. It is like ongoing sex, “take me!”.

Again, it is like approaching a cow, or think of it like a wild animal - no sudden movements or deliberateness. Be more indirect or distracting, more playful. It is not helpful to be heavy and needy, like having a crush. That is too targeted and aggressive.

Here are three helpful tips: 1. Be with immediate experience. 2. Be skeptical of beliefs and interpretations. 3. Keep good company. It turns out that this present experience is grace, and that this is not something new.

Find out that what you are resting in can’t stop and is always here - and then just stay there. What this is is realization, it is not what you do. It is not about behavior.   Ignore interpretations and stay with the cutting edge of immediate experience. You don’t need to “catch up” to the cutting edge because you are already there. Experience is always real, it is always in real time, and it is absolutely discontinuous. We spend too much time with the residue, not with real time.   In Dzogchen, this is the definition of liberation: everything is immediately vanishing, therefore nothing can trip you up or entangle you.   Infinity is immediately and absolutely local and subjective. If you use details and specificity to find infinity, then details don’t cause problems, they help you find reality.   Experience is in the present moment – go there, that’s reality. You are here, forever, intimately.

In direct experience, beliefs don’t hold water. Things are too subtle and complex to get a handle on anything, there are too many factors.

Sensitivity is already in place. There is a notion that sensitivity to fineness is something that I have to “attain”. The texture of experience is astounding, we just stop at a coarser level of things. The fineness of experience is inconceivable.

In other words, the issue is not so much about sensitivity, but just with not stopping at gross superficial seeing.   The active pole is experience, not the experiencer – experience comes to you nonstop, it is dynamism, it is radiance. It undercuts “I am looking at an object”, and more becomes the fact that photons are shooting at you nonstop. The passive pole is the perceiver. The life force is presenting itself, it is bombarding you. It is an invasive positivity, a radiance, an intelligence, a creativity. You are not a static meditator, you are getting hit with a tidal wave!

Regarding special times in your life, the specialness comes from you. You have to work hard to make it not special. We supply the specialness. We also supply the smallness. We supply the unenlightenment. Death is non-negotiable, as is the present moment. It is all already here, unbidden. Everything just spontaneously ends up where it is supposed to.

Imagination feeding more imagination is what samsara is. It is a self-supporting feedback loop: thought-feeling-thought-feeling-action-feeling-thought, etc. Seeing that the interpretations are erroneous breaks the cycle. [Ed: experiencing feelings without the idea of what they are or why they are, they become just sensations, no big deal, meaning nothing.]

Presence gets “lost” by getting lost in detail.   Realize that nothing is gained by interpretation, only by the intimacy of experience.   What is seeing my experience is the “space” that experience is in.

Clarity is seeing the unclarity. You are stabilizing in instability.

Start feeling yourself as the field – all the sensory fields happen within the field of experience.

Dreams become less stale and flat, they cease to be one thing or another – they become very different and incoherent. Value is added because of seeing different dimensions beyond normalcy. There is more and other.

How can you tell if someone else is awake? Qualities of awake: aliveness, being unstuck, the sense that they have something “behind” them, no paper façades. There is clout, a feeling that they are plugged in, energized, tingley-ness (not murky). There is a powerfulness, a feeling of authority – a power they are drawing on and it is big.

People are fundamentally disoriented. If you are oriented to reality, you are immune to cults. You can’t “believe” what’s real.

If you’re caught up in thinking obsessively or have any kind of intense focus, the cure is to feel the energy presence of it. The obsession with the storyline then begins to dissipate. Pain is pain because we hold it that way. What is the energy of it? So, you’re not trying to change or get rid of an experience, but losing the definition/judgment you have of it. The energy will seduce you.   Self-liberation comes from seeing that everything morphs, everything goes away. Noticing radiance, the energy actually present, liberates. You could say that there is a progression of three levels as to how radiance liberates: 1. Liberation upon noticing radiance. 2. The mere fact of things appearing liberates, it is immediate. 3. Liberation is primordial/ongoing because nothing other than radiance appears.

Experience is radiance. It is always shining forth, vibrating, wiggling, and always a surprise. It is tingling and sparkling. There are no objects (body, thought, table, etc.), there is only experience.

This is not about achieving a certain perspective, but about not holding any perspective. It is more a sense of freely floating.

Concentrating on our psychology, on regrets/failures/successes is largely a self-indulgent partiality. It only looks at a small part of what’s here. There is a denial of vastness.   An advanced “yoga” is seeing that distractions are noticing too. Busting your ass is noticing. It’s no longer either/or.

In Buddhist terms: Nirmanakaya is a noun, the appearance of the radiance, what it looks like. Sambhogakaya is a verb, the dynamism of the radiance. Dharmakaya is presence, being, is-ness. It is undifferentiated, there is only one presence. You are the radiance, the presence = the full field. The whole thing is self, or you could just say there is just one thing.

Instead of trying to get outside of the programming, see the program is radiance too. Explore with sensitivity. We are already infinitely sensitive. You can’t shut off the presence of experience!   Spirituality is devotion to astoundingness, richness, lusciousness. It can very “vocally” draw you in. Just keep feeling, and it spontaneously deepens.   Thought does not block feeling, feeling doesn’t block seeing – they have their own place. Nothing blocks anything. There is an epidemic of self-loathing. You find natural self-importance in radiance. You find THE specialness, not “my” specialness. What is the most important part of your car? Every part of the system contributes equally.   Fear is always in fantasy, based on the hypothetical, never on   actuality. For instance we fear death, but we have no idea what death is. When you fight fantasy you feed it, you tell it that it’s important. The less attention you give to problems the more spontaneously they drop away.

Holding noticing as being special IS the prison, it creates non-specialness. No flavor is better, and no flavor departs from radiance. Every experience is a doorway, is infinite. What it looks like is not what it is.   You rest in certainty without it having to prove itself. Achievement has already happened and is ongoing. This is ongoing revelation. Letting go means to let go of holding it as being a certain way. Again, what this is can’t be held any way. The ground of everything is nothing in particular. We are not comfortable with things being undefined. We’d rather have shitty definitions than no definitions.

“me” is extremely familiar, but you can’t find it, it’s opaque, a mystery.]

Sensitivity increases. The gap between seeing content/meaning/situations, versus feeling energy, can still seem big. The standard of judgment increases as your noticing increases.   Self-assessment is very difficult. In other words, do not trust your interpretation of yourself either.   If you can admit,  “Of course I’m nuts”, the pressure is off.  Things mattering is still there, but mattering doesn’t matter - that is more a function of a very small part of you.

If you’re not in radiance, you are in circumstance. You are in the waves - instead go to the ocean. The radiance is not opposite of being sucked into circumstances. Labels are little, context is vast. Waves come with the ocean. Small crazy person comes with, but is revealed as irrelevant, small potatoes.   It is not either/or. It is a matter of proportion. You see the actual proportion of situations and radiance. In obsession we censor vastness. It is a lie, it isn’t true.

the bottomless upwelling of infinity.

In the long run, noticing will win out. Don’t cling to it, just go to it occasionally. Don’t approach with desperation. Be easy with it, and let it be easy. It can come and go – this is more resonant with how it really is. You can’t micromanage it. You can even be easy with desperation. “Fuck it” is the best mantra. Truly.

“I” is the field of vision (and hearing, etc.). And you can think of “I” as its own dimension:  I = field of present actuality. Dimensionality is not structured. Anything can be seen as a dimension, or quality (there are dimensions within seeing, such as focus).

You develop confidence that the flow is doing itself, that it is trustworthy and reliable. There is less a sense of needing to fix, correct, or navigate. The natural flow is to openness. The real business of life is engagement with your energy rather than getting shit done. Prioritize energy engagement. You are being lived, energy is engaged with karma.

“Transcends” = not what you think it is. You’re not going to find out what things are, but only that they aren’t what you think they are. The appearance of the stability of things (even “solid” things like walls, etc.) is like standing waves – water flows consistently around a rock in stream making a stationary wave. The wave seems nonmoving and continuous, but is actually made of swiftly moving water. Seeing closer breaks up continuity. Looking closer is the path - it creates its own curiosity and interest, and leads to more closer looking.

Think of senses in terms of fineness (into and into and into…), not in terms of outside/inside. Not spatial, but degrees of fineness. Always more and deeper, more and other. In dullness, we think things are one way. That is arbitrary. Experience is intrinsically unlimited.

Texture/fineness of experience is not better than dullness. Dullness is a kind of clarity. Ignoring dynamism is a kind of dynamism. Confusion and dullness are a couple of reality’s major modes [obviously!].

Watch out for wanting resolution. Unresolved-ness is the end. The discovery (and profundity) is of disorientation.

Don’t orient towards getting rid of normalcy, but let the radiance/context start to impinge.  Go to the radiance/the positivity, instead of the negative, ”not this”.

Every instant transcends all expectations. And this is obvious. The simple fact is that every instant is unexpected and spontaneous. You can investigate: spontaneity, unfindability, dimensionality, in between-ness. Don’t expect anything to conform.

Whenever preferences show up or any condition for that matter, what to notice is its dynamism – that it shows up and how it shows up, and disappears. View everything in the quantum ways. There is endless opening. It is all doing itself, preferences, everything.

(Beauty as practice: every point a starting point)

The “practice” is basically beauty. “Wow” leads to more “wow”. Let it seduce you. Every point is a starting point. “Ok, This is it” – and it opens by itself.   Maturity: how to engage with experience without pushing, being easy. It’s an art form. Learn to trust, you learn you don’t need to liberate anything, it is liberated. Whatever it is, it is transcendental. “This is it too”. It’s dizzying! It teaches you subtly and confidence. It loses its seeming rarity and delicacy, and then desperation lessens as well.   The very things that are problems are IT too.

My field of experience - can’t find anything else. I’ve been overshooting!, looking perhaps for something “other”, more special. By all means, go for pleasure and avoid pain, just notice it all happens in MY FIELD OF EXPERIENCE. It is always 100% present. This Is, “I Am”, duh! It is a field of experience. Experience, not special experience, IS the mind fuck.

Spiritual “development” often doesn’t feel like development – obstacles decrease, but sensitivity increases so it may seem like you’re not “improving”.

Pay attention to what you’re excluding rejecting, ignoring. Unfreshness is fresh. Good times, bored times, taking a dump, it is ALL the pinnacle of everything that’s come before.

Experience is everywhere, but nobody values it. Feel how the light show is a constant chameleon.

Just feel the is-ness of the present moment – it pushes on you. This is. Presence, radiance will dominate over time. Here-ness/is-ness is concrete. Everything else is guesswork. Just feel the obviousness of here-ness.

Energy/experience is continuously and effortlessly replenishing itself, and it is always full, never more or less.   You can’t turn it off. It is self-refreshing, a whole, always complete. This is all a spontaneous exploration of our energies, even negative stuff – which self- corrects in this exploration. Our interpretations are glib. What is the same thing happening in all states and conditions? This state we are experiencing now has never happened before.   In regards to pain, pain always happens in a context of no pain – you can attend to that. Also, pain is not what it seems. It is a bizarre and intense transcendental presence – it transcends what you hold it to be. Is it true that pain isn’t supposed to be happening? You can either be with the raw energy, or with the storyline/fantasy about pain. Being with actuality is grace.

Slipperiness/morphing = radiance. Slipperiness is a magic carpet. Intimacy is, all the time, one thing happening, right in your face.

Pay attention to the outer edges of thought, where there’s not so much focus. There’s always more going on there.   Self = totality/inclusive, not a subset of experience.   Devaluing normalcy is the problem, it’s holding onto a hierarchy of experience.   Feeling stuck can be interesting. Seeing, not changing, is the trick.   The more you generalize, the more you are in the interpretations (which are hypothetical), the more you are in imagination.  We are hypnotized by interpretations.

When circumstances are less charged, play with tripping out on the dynamism of weirdness. In this limbo of loss of meaning of circumstances, play with the dots, with the blue sky [sky gazing: what appears at first as an opaque blue field starts to swarm with activity] – an appreciation of the transcendental nature of everything will take over.   Feel how experience is constantly refreshing itself – it is an enforced positivity, a forceful presence, you feel drenched.

Play – see if you can read minds. See if you can feel auras, each like a fine wine. Experiment with uncontrolled ways of being with experience. You can do this because you are already doing it.

You’re just making it uncensored, opening to raw directness. Experience the field by Braille.

Public meeting, Los Angeles, January 11, 2014   There is nothing but the continual instantaneous flash of experience/appearance. Everything else is after-the-fact/delusion. Me/consciousness is a hyper intelligence. You can’t turn off this intelligence – this is what to notice. The entirety of reality shows up, now, in appearance, bang – done, finished.

“Hell realm” and “heaven realm” is only spin doctoring - it is all total radiance.   Fantasy: you are “doing” your mind and personality. In actuality you are like a movie being shown. No need to steer, or manage, or control, or track. Fish don’t need to orient to water. This is making itself up as it goes, and that’s the best way to be with it.

Actuality is always unexpected.

Experience is “solid”, not objects. Locations are in experience, there is no location to experience.

Personality is born out of no personality. Definitions are born out of no labels.

You don’t need to make sense of energies, just surf them. We are incoherent energy systems, a performance art. There is no “you”, there’s just a sea of textures.

We start to float freely, no particular perspective is true. Liberation isn’t the rawness, it’s becoming unstuck, not giving a shit, no perspective to hang onto.

A. There is an arrogance of thinking I know what the problem is, and how things should be. “Gotta get rid of the feeling of I” = gotta cut down the trees to see the forest. Do I really know what the problem is? It’s only a problem if you’re not looking at it and seeing what it really is. Delusion lies in generalities. What is seeing experience is radiant presence. Thoughts are a direct energy engagement.

Video, no date   “Stuck” is always partial. You can either see the context outside of stuck, or go to the substance – stuck is an energy, and boom, you’re out of stuck. The feeling of self happens in a context other than that, and it is weird.

Be with what it is, and it will move and open – it’s an ongoing revelation, always unexpected. I’m surprising to myself – unexpected, improvising all the time. _________________________

Experience is a razor’s edge – either you fall into seduction, or into noticing infinity. We are always on the edge of noticing or not noticing.   Actuality is powerful.

A. There is a glitch between the personal and the impersonal, but the impersonal is still the context of the personal, what it grows out of. The personal doesn’t go away, but there’s a growing noticing of the field, of the field of being. It’s like a star in the night sky – it is totally different than the sky, but grows out of it, exists because of it.

Regarding drug experiences: instead of getting lost in phenomena, go to the depths, the fullness. Look for the common denominator, look for the context if personality stuff comes up.

Curiosity is unending because incoherence and indeterminacy are streaming unendingly – you never get to the bottom of it.

Life is 100% spiritual in the refinement of experiential energy. We are regaining innocence in a sophisticated way. Losing innocence may not be so bad, because regaining it is like polishing a stone in a rock tumbler - which is through engagement with THIS presence.   An island isn’t floating, it isn’t separate and discrete, it is an uprising of the entire earth at that point. [Great metaphor for you and the field]

When you sense this “beyond”, the bubble of experience expands. It is backless, bottomless - you are there even if it is invisible and you don’t know what it is. It is palpable. This is how one discovers deathlessness.

Q. Is waking up different than liberation? A. Yes. Waking up is the highest state. Liberation is the “lowest” state, the ground, the always-present common denominator, not determined by superficial states. Realization could be said to be the ground state realizing it is fundamental. It is so other than the superficial stuff we’re so entirely distracted by.

Radiance is not a different “layer” of noticing that is above or beneath or beyond the regular content of experience. The appearing is the radiance - it literally collapses into one thing experientially.

The void is omnipresent, it is always on the other side of definitions. We won’t be frightened of the void the more we see it experientially now. Make hay while the sun shines! The terror of death is the terror of losing everything. But we already don’t have anything! This is 99% void already!

“Abandonment”: happens to ME, is MY problem, rather than being a transcendental event. “Abandoned” is not accurate, it is not a psychological state, it is not mine, it is pure nothing. Don’t get sucked in by appearances – nothing is gained or lost. See that you don’t even have to let go of it.

More than anything else, Peter helped put the ball back into my court, than with the “spiritual experts”. Please re-read that last sentence, it’s a good one.

It’s important to get very personal with all this. Attending public meetings can tend to be more superficial, in terms of what you’re bringing to the table, and also tend to foster a subliminal (or not so subliminal) consumer paradigm, where you’re “in the audience” with the teacher as performer/entertainer/active partner to your passive partner in the relationship. A lot like watching tv or a stage play or something.

You won’t hear a lot about this, this information is the essential aspect of one of the two main dzogchen approaches, the most advanced, called “todgal”.   This approach has been kept secret, and is available in very few places in print.   Directly seeing this infinite sparkling radiance, by the way, is directly experiencing sambhogakaya.   Best- Peter

The shakti is not “physical bliss”, but that can be a symptom of noticing it. Try starting with the “physical bliss”, and “follow” it “in”, you will notice its profound vitality and creativity, subtlety and intelligence. __________________________

Hi Stan- Another thought- The overarching point; do NOT try to use these tricks as antidotes to an “undesirable” frame of mind, to try to change to a desirable frame of mind. Rather, use them in the context of whatever frame of mind seems to be spontaneously present, to reveal that there is always MORE that is accessible; “frames of mind” are not closed systems, they are perspectives in infinite openness and otherness. The cardinal rule: don’t try to modify or control your mind. Don’t wrestle with states of mind. Just let whatever appears be in the openness that it inherently is- that openness and unfindability, which alone is present in ANY “frame of mind”. Just notice THAT without pushing or pulling on anything, that’s the whole point.

You might consider exploring these “three terrible oaths” from dzogchen. Their essence is not in acceptance or tolerance, but actively and wholeheartedly choosing as the ultimate preference and commitment - quite subtle- http://www.aroencyclopaedia.org/shared/text/d/dorje_trollo_th_01_aro_02_oaths_eng.php http://www.aroencyclopaedia.org/shared/text/d/dorje_trollo_th_01_aro_02_oaths_eng.php Best- Peter

3/31/11   Subject: A very nice comprehensive Dzogchen article http://www.wayoflight.net/uploads/Dilgo_Khentse_Rinpoche.pdf

Simply watch/FEEL the wave of your experience appearing and disappearing simultaneously in real time, with absolutely no duration. FEEL the texture of it disappearing utterly and absolutely continually; that is what you are, what this is.

When one gets into subtler dzogchen meditation, this division between “raw experience” of inconceivability, and distraction through taking anything whatsoever as actually existent as some condition or entity on any degree of subtlety/coarseness, is the cutting edge of practice. So when you find yourself in noticing, in astoundingness, (raw experience), when something appears as seemingly other than that, just at that first apparition, look and see what the “distraction” is actually made of - of course you will notice that it is actually the same inconceivability.

any “I” which intuitively feels like the ultimate basis of this phenomena can’t be found, can’t be resolved as anything whatsoever- so this inclusive presence of experience is the only “I” that can be found, and of course exactly what IT is can’t be resolved or precisely determined either- revealing again the inherent self-transcendence of THIS, of this astounding sole fact of BEING. [italics emphasis my own – Ed.]

I re-watched a youtube interview of you with the guy from Open Secret, and got blown open towards the end (at 7min50sec) where you talk about the separate seeking self and how you finally saw it as actually a harmonic of the whole, the meta-field. Plus you’re talking previously about all being consciousness and energy… The whole thing was a one-two punch.

Yes- “Things” assume their true perspective, as fractal aspects of the whole, unimportant in themselves. The whole “system” alone is important, and it endlessly appears as all these appearances of aspects of itself, like reflections of the moon in

water, that present aspects of actuality, but are in themselves not autonomously actual or “important”. These aspects include all experiential “subsystems” whatever, including your body, your personality aspects, the elements of your environment, etc. It’s ALL like aspects of a dream, unimportant in themselves- only the dreamer/dreaming is important… and you are THAT. Best- Peter

This “orientation” is a non-issue. It’s another seduction into self-importance- you don’t need to change it or stop it, you just need to see what it is- and of course that is radiant presence, and nothing else whatever. So the issue isn’t orientation, it’s holding radiant presence to be something in particular, in this case “an orientation”- It makes ABSOLUTELY no difference how it appears, radiant presence doesn’t depart from itself, and is intrinsically transcendental and inherently liberated- and there is nothing else whatsoever.

Any teaching or apparent situation other than the radiance itself is vastly less than the radiance, so why give it any attention whatsoever? Why not let go of orienting towards these kinds of things, and give your attention to the actual presence of the radiance just as it is in this moment as your experience? It is intrinsically the highest “teaching”, is liberation and transcendence itself, and is actual and efficacious.

Hi Stan- Jed approaches this stuff from the opposite direction from me, but it’s the same topic. His approach is to address and dismantle/destroy all clinging to delusion, leaving “the dark void” or “non dual abiding awareness” as that which remains; whereas I recommend ignoring the delusion and going right to radiant presence, which is in actuality what he refers to as his “void” and “anda”. I think my approach is more efficient and a hell of a lot easier/more fun, but hey, there’s no rule book…

The net affect of the book brings home the experience of “I alone exist” as a truth, not an idea to try on or try to realize.  Brings it starkly back to here, rather than waiting for the next thing.

There is nothing whatever other than this one condition existing- you can call it the “flow of experience” or the “field of radiance”, but it is itself, what it actually is, and is untouched by how you choose to spin it in description. “Projects” are this, as is “procrastination”, “wasting time”, “feeling better”, “taking anxiety pills”, “getting stuff done”, “torpor”, “dynamism”, etc. etc. Even “giving importance to circumstances over the flow of immediate experience” or “wallowing in delusion” does not depart from, and consists entirely of, this actual condition.

Just feel its flavor & dimensionality like you might enjoy the taste/experience of a piece of chocolate melting in your mouth. Don’t try to qualify it, just notice that it is essentially unqualify-able. Best- Peter

Radiance is ENTIRELY independent of situations, of course. Radiance is even independent of noticing it or not, which after all is just a situation. If you prefer noticing to not, then try to cultivate that, but in actuality there’s nothing gained or lost whether or not you do, it’s just another situation. And since it doesn’t matter what you do in relation to situations, please (or TRY to…) yourself (or not!). In short, fuck it, it doesn’t matter (!) Best- Peter

I’d change the “myself” to “this” on your paper by the bed- the radiance is absolutely objective, all of it, even aspects usually classified as subjective. Try noticing that there’s only the objective field, which is everything, doing itself. Nothing to realize, no jockeying to see it in any particular way- Best- Peter

Hi Stan- It’s much simpler than you’re making it. Just this, however it appears; including trying, grasping, seeing, not seeing- they’re all just the same, just this.

And I think the frustration comes from KNOWING that this deserves infinite appreciation, and so “why can’t I see it now, damn it,” kind of thing. Any thoughts you may have would be ‘appreciated’

Hi K. -   As one matures in being with this, a kind of threshold is crossed, or you might say a sense of commitment is achieved, where one gets it what this actually is intrinsically, inalienably, and one lets go of the urgency to prove it, verify it, or even explore it that is felt so strongly in earlier phases of being with this.   This condition as it is is real, is actual, and is absolutely inclusive in all its expressions, so it gains or loses nothing by the way it happens to appear at any moment, whether as spectacularly transcendent, or as mundane, seemingly personal, seemingly reactive- in actuality THIS IS IT(!), whatever it looks like.   As one gains the certainty that this is the case, there is a relaxation of “seeking”, needing to prove this is something special, which is after all an expression of the fear that it is not…

I was in the ocean body surfing waves (trying not to judge the different waves), and noticed I’m almost constantly searching for “right view”, the right way to see things, the right take on things. Ugh. Remembered a Buddhist guy saying that the Buddha [actually] said there is no such thing as right view – there is only right view pragmatically as it pertains to the lessening of suffering. And you saying over and over there is no final condition or way things are. That’s all pretty radical, especially considering my mind spends so much time looking for the right take…   A. (Another Buddhist friend) gave me a book about the mind, which I’m slogging my way through. Difficult because it describes pretty accurately the claustrophobic “regime” of the dualistic mind, the house of mirrors and instantaneous echoing of itself, so that actuality seems pretty inaccessible.

Hi Peter -   I’m noticing more and more times where the feeling of separation collapses, and starting to intuit the following: Jed McKenna and others say that you can’t “do” ego death, or get rid of the “I” because first of all it Is impossible for it to be in control of it’s own demise (can’t attend your own funeral), and 2nd because it doesn’t want to leave the game - wants its cake and to eat it too.

That’s very accurate. The issue of “ego death” is imaginary, as you clearly express it’s more a matter of noticing that “ego” is just an arbitrary gestalt of perspectives within an essentially trans-perspective actuality, that yet presents itself as myriad apparent perspectives inclusively, with none of them having any primacy or even relevance in terms of the whole actuality.

For me the issue with “sangha and path” is that it’s heavy-handed, ultimately artificial, with implications of “this is better than that”. There is no path/nothing but path, no community/nothing but community. The idea that there is some principles or states of mind that are desirable to support (that sangha/path would support) is untrue. There is nothing whatever to orient to, not clarity, understanding, seeing through illusion, freedom or openness.

Being up the creek of your imperfect experience without a paddle (of support, technique or practice)- in short, fucked- is the most direct, powerful, and efficient path. This nostalgic longing for support (sangha/path) and achievement (as such) is the attack of the enemy, delusion; simply resting in this chaos of unresolvability/disappointment/failure is the very finish line. Through the intense fire of not dodging the chaos of neurotic normalcy into fantasies of achievement one rapidly realizes the actually present transcendent infinite unresovablility that liberates all apparent conditions into their actual nature.

(Direct access techniques: personal strategies for noticing)

Priming the Pump Tricks for jogging insights into experience

In general, Peter suggests: “discover easy access points, find your strengths in this, wherever access to the ‘wow factor’ is easiest. Become an expert at getting out of reference points – these strategies are very personal”.       “Presence is what it is all about. All tricks and techniques are only to notice presence.”

• See how clearly and effortlessly everything shows up in your visual field. Notice how clearly and effortlessly sounds show up. Same with sensations, or thoughts, clearly showing up, no maintenance or any kind of mediation required. – look closely and see with 100% certainty that any kind of maintenance, control or mediation is a fantasy.

Notice how instead of having a head, you are looking out of a huge clear picture window, full of everything but you. You are invisible! You are a capacity for everything else.

• Imagine a snow globe, with a little scene inside with little people. Normally we’re aware as one of the little folks inside. Instead, allow awareness to be the glass globe, where everything here in your current environment (including your body) is inside your bubble of experience. - See your entire environment (with your body included) as a whole, as if it were a scene on a movie screen you’re looking at. See how instead of being “inside” your body, your body is part of the entire scene, “inside” your field of experience.

Try putting your attention one or two feet above your head - you may notice a spaciousness, an openness that is non-temporal.

• Notice qualities of light (and sounds, smells, etc.) – it is not inert, it conveys and communicates inexpressible feelings and moods. This can jog ways you felt as a kid.   - Use your opposite hand. Take a different route to work. If you like TV, don’t watch it for an hour. If you like crowds, be by yourself for a bit, and vise-versa. Mix it up.

wonder what’s going to happen next? See how you don’t know what’ll happen next, even the next second. See how you don’t know what you’ll think next. See how you don’t even know what you’ll pay attention to next (nor how long it’ll stay there)! The more you notice you do not have any idea what will happen next, then by definition, what does happen next is a discovery! This is ongoing discovery.

• Notice how “similar” events, like the commute to work, or going shopping for groceries, or familiar people, are completely different every time. Similarities only exist in generalized superficial seeing. So, with things and situations you are very familiar with (commute to work, family and friends, work, even how you are with yourself, etc), pretend you are not familiar. It is much more powerful than “fake it till you make it”, because immediately you run into aspects you in truth are not that familiar with. “Familiar” is revealed to be a fantasy! And actuality is always more powerful than fantasy, when seen.

• Feel how experience is constantly refreshing itself – it is an enforced positivity, a forceful presence, you feel drenched. It is not listless. It is happening forcefully, unstoppably, not waiting for you to make it happen. The fact that experience keeps showing up, ongoing revealing, is what is awake.   - Am I having an experience, or is there just experiencing? (Thank you Night Sky Sangha guy) - Notice how all aspects of experience – maybe start with sensations - feel very finely carbonated, fizzy – not inert. Everything is felt, and felt as this subtle fine tingling texture (including the streaming of mental energy, which is like a carrier wave for thought).

This “act” of feeling is not a big heavy deep affair, it s a very refined one, a fineness. - ”Let yourself feel numbness (which is a sensation in itself), without making judgments, we start to see that these sensations are not static or solid. We will most likely find a lot of movement in the body – a kind of fullness – like the body is expanding from within or coming to life. This is a deeply enjoyable experience.” - Elizabeth Mathias’ blog (Nyingma teacher).

Look at a white wall – very soon you’ll start seeing colors and movement. Instead of dismissing this as “noise of the machine”, let it be foreground. Or sit in a pitch-black room and get lost in the fullness of the morphing inner lights.

• Play with falling asleep – pay attention to how luscious and delicious and incredibly full it is, what a relief, and how it comes at you like a mack truck, instead of a seeming dullness you fall off into through associative thought. - Notice how you “die” to this world when you fall asleep, and die to the dream world when you wake up. - Notice how “over there” disappears completely when you look “over here”.

• Notice how “you” and all willfulness, falls away when you go to sleep, but consciousness does not.

Whatever room or space you’re in, instead play with seeing space as a medium, like Jello or warm water - a feeling medium, that connects and permeates rather than separates.

• Anti meditation: When just sitting around or meditating, allow the whole mess (of feelings, thoughts, perceptions, etc) to go on without touching any of it, not doing anything about any of it, hands off. No tweaking, no fixing, no grabbing or amping up. No feeling deeper, no transforming anything, no focus tyranny, just leave it all alone. It’s a clean feeling, and easy. What shows up in the vacuum of no project can really get quite beautiful and indescribable, but don’t take my word for it. Just leave yourself alone for a bit, and see what happens.   - Notice what you find is visually interesting in daily life (or just from where you’re sitting right now), and most importantly, how come it’s interesting. Write it down. The juice is in the details (“because it’s cool” doesn’t cut it). When done incisively, the sense of living in a subtle magic land arises. This s fun to do in a group (have done it with art classes and workshops, never fails).

If the focus of your attention is spontaneous and obsessive, flitting around, the cure is to create a conscious physical focus: twiddle your thumbs or your toes, some kind of physical stimulation like tickling your arm, or some repetitive motion. This frees up panoramic attention and gives access to the full field. It also counters boredom.

Notice the true fact of presence right here without narrative. Go into the detail, this undermines everything by itself. This is the most powerful. - Simply feel IS-ness.

• “The only note you will ever need”: Simply watch/FEEL the wave of your experience appearing and disappearing simultaneously in real time, with absolutely no duration. FEEL the texture of it disappearing utterly and absolutely continually; that is what you are, what this is.

Buddhist kayas, or realms that make up reality, “layers” present in all experience. This is from the site, “About Religion”, written by Buddhist expert, Barbara O’Brian: According to Mahayana Buddhism, a Buddha is one with the Absolute but manifests in the relative world of form and appearances in order to work for the liberation of all beings. This is enabled by the three bodies: the dharmakaya, the sambhogakaya, and the nirmanakaya. These three bodies are the Trikaya.                            Dharmakaya is sometimes called the Truth Body or the Dharma Body and is identified with shunyata. Dharmakaya is everything, unmanifested, free of characteristics and distinctions. Sambhogakaya is the Reward Body. It is the bliss of enlightenment and the reward of spiritual practice.                                         Nirmanakaya is the Transformation Body, or the body that appears in the world to teach and liberate others.

O ur lives are made up of experiences. We normally think of our lives as being made up of compartmentalized experiences that we have, with maybe some downtime in between. Some experiences we desire and dream about and chase, and others we try to avoid. Avoiding and chasing are also experiences. So is downtime.

All of this ties into art. It’s my contention that art is about nothing but experience - illuminating, reflecting, and

We are desensitized to much of the depth of our experience through the conditioning of language

Lastly, the training is about developing sensitivity (a form of deconstruction itself) - learning to look closer and more subtly, beyond definitions, within deeper and more nuanced bandwidths. Just trying to draw a still life in beginning drawing, spending hours beyond the initial, “oh, it’s just some fruit and a bottle”, begins this process of sensitization in profound ways. There is endless visual “information”, endless qualities, much of which there are no words for.