(Conscious contact hijacked by the claiming mind)
Each moment Life streams through the gates of the senses, fresh and new. That’s CONSCIOUS CONTACT. Then the mind hijacks it, saying, “I am what’s in conscious contact. I am doing the seeing, touching, thinking.” The mind’s modus operandi is CLAIMING. There is life and it’s happening; then the mind claims that life. Now life is happening to me. A bird flies by. There is simple consciousness of it. Seeing happens. Then the head says, “I saw that.” WHO is seeing --- the sense of being the one seeing --- becomes more important than SEEING itself. The conscious contact is being claimed by the head. It puts you to sleep to the awareness that you ARE the conscious contact. “Selfing” is parasitic. It’s taken over. You may be looking FROM it all day.
What’s looking is what you’re looking for. --- Saint Francis of Assisi
Life is a VERB. It’s just happening. Not TO anyone. Just energy, riffing like crazy. Selfing makes a NOUN of itself. A thing through body-identification. The illusion of being a noun is that everything is happening from outside TO YOU. All day, every bit of conscious contact that is continually happening, your head is claiming it, as YOU (the body) being the one in contact. But the “self” is just a story the mind’s running. Nothing ever happened to what I AM. I am the pure and simple AWARENESS of events. Life is happening; it’s a verb. The verb is the reality and the noun is the illusion. You are looking at it from the point of view of being a noun so you’re missing it. That’s what your head is doing all day: INTERPRETING what is going on and making it into a story about something else. You lose the verbing of life as soon as the noun claims the experience as something that happened to it. You can drop down into verbing and see the noun in action. See it on its throne. The verbing doesn’t stop; it’s always on. There is not a “past of presence” nor a “future of presence.” There is BEING. Now.
(Awareness as context, self as content — the bowl and the soup)
Awareness is the CONTEXT of life. What you incorrectly call “self’” is a CONTENT. Planes don’t bump into the sky. “Hey, I almost hit some sky.” No. Rain comes, the sky doesn’t get wet.…
Take a bowl. Put things in it; make soup. Does the bowl change? No, no more than the bowl of sky does when the birds and stars move through. No more than the mind does as thoughts flow in and out. This…
You ARE that SPACE, entertaining the conscious awareness of what’s appearing each moment. But you identify with a mental…
“Why is life happening to me this way?” Because you’ve construed yourself as a part of the soup when you’re really the context, the bowl. Life seems to be happening TO you, as the soup, a whole drama of not enough spice and so on. You see life’s content but miss the context in which it’s held --- the freedom that is ‘prior to’ the self. You see the stars but give little…
The ego uses seeking as a stratagem to hide your true identity. It knows you won’t “find…
The bowl has a purpose: It holds. You ARE that space. The conscious space that is aware and conscious of what’s appearing in it. Holding all the appearances that are happening as they pass. But we’ve identified with a mental process that says “I” am part of the content, floating around in the soup. The soup is happening to me. Your life becomes a storage unit full of mental memorabilia…
(Selfing as an ongoing verb that must be daily renewed)
There has to be an application of new glue every day to rebind your mind to the idea of your being a self. Because it’s all smoke and mirrors. The makings of selfing…
The mind is selfing all day long, and in that mirror of selfing there is the appearance of a “you.” Mirror, mirror, mirror, making up an appearance of something real. An aspect of mind has become…
the world of mirrors. And it’s trying to get out. But self can’t get out of self. The whole point is to…
There is an activity of mind working on appearance. Trying to make the appearance better. All the appearances have one faulty point: They’re not real. (Though the…
What happens when you stop taking marching orders from thought? Self is no longer in the center. There is a…
Will you put Life into so small a cage, like a small bird? It’s the nature of the bird to fly. When it becomes YOUR bird you have a caged…
Being a self is an exhausting job! Why grasp at life? Release all that! Set attention free — be a hawk high overhead. As Jesus says, “You’re in the world but not of it.” We’re in the soup but not part of it. That makes it easy to swim in the soup, realizing you’re not “of” it.
(We are the conscious contact, not a recipient of it)
It’s not so much that we are IN conscious contact; we ARE the conscious contact.
The conscious contact is the Life-Giving of All Life. That’s the only way you know you have your life, because you’re conscious to what’s flowing each moment through the five gates. Life is happening, all of it right now. But our interpretation is, life is happening to ME: self-centeredness. There’s no peace in an agitated mind. A swell on the water produced by heavy winds of false evidence, breaking over and over on itself.
But when there’s an entertaining, “I’m not that,” you can experience a pause, a timeless moment in a linear time frame. That’s a pause you can live in. Live AS. It’s not something you can attain. It’s always available.
It’s a whole different way of traveling. If you don’t see false evidence as true, how will there be anxiety?
You’ve got to see what this mind entertains. It entertains that if something is good it’s going to end quickly. When it’s bad it’s going to last forever. The entertaining is unbelievable! The task it has been put to is what’s driving it crazy.
(The mind lives in what’s not happening — past and future as evasion)
We’re entertaining time. We think there’s a future. Can you land in the future? Is there an airport there? But you seem to be landing there everyday. Head. Mental experience. That little alley, the dead end of the conditioned mind that can only go backward and forward.
What’s the solution to WHAT’S NOT HAPPENING? It’s really simple. Very, very clean. You don’t have to sign up for a subscription. Don’t have to re-up it. You don’t have to go on a retreat for it. Don’t have to get in on an installment plan. The solution to what’s not happening is recognizing it’s not happening. If you recognize it’s not happening, all desire to provide a solution to it is snuffed out; because you realize it’s not happening. It takes no time at all.
A simple recognition! Then your attention goes where? To WHAT IS HAPPENING. Now you’re present. And what you get off on actually is YOU, BEING PRESENT. Not what’s happening so much as you, being here. It’s a simple message.
As soon as self starts managing, life becomes unmanageable. Self-centeredness is what’s managing. There is no you that’s managing; it’s a mental program called self-centeredness that’s reacting to everything that comes up in awareness.
Awareness is what’s happening — conscious contact, the direct interface with the moment. But there’s a mental reaction to what’s happening that overrides the conscious contact, so that you spin out in a story about what’s happening. Adding chapter after chapter to apply solutions; and you don’t see that “problem and solution” is the bigger problem. You’re not aware that your true life is conscious contact.
You’re wanting the verb-ness of life, but you’re missing it. You’re saddled with this noun way of looking at things. There is the dilemma: You cannot see you’ve made yourself into a noun, for you look at everything from a noun’s perspective. The noun cannot get the sense of peace because peace is a living movement, not a stagnant thing you acquire or capture.
The mind’s interpretation is, “All right, I’m going to stick myself in front of that verb. Stick myself in as a noun and edit life, under the assumption that I am the doer of this verb. I am seeing, I am touching, I am feeling, I am hearing, and I am especially thinking about it all. The doer and the haver and the interpreter. Exhausting! Trying to have control over it all. Grasping at some assurance it’s going to be okay down the river. Building dams and reservoirs
(The pause — when light meets light, bondage breaks)
You assume you are in a box. Three sides in front of you, and your body is the fourth side. A little box of self-centeredness with only a certain amount of possibility for it, re-hashing the same old aspirations and the same old maps to what seems to be a well but has no water. You can look behind you, at the back of the box, what you called the fourth wall. This thing called Paul — this wall isn’t a wall. You see it’s not a true box; the thing you thought was restraining you doesn’t exist. When light meets light there’s no reaction to it. That’s the pause. And it’s never-ending. You get broken from the bondage of self when the light is turned upon itself. Your reactions change. Something that would get your hackles up won’t anymore. Not a slave to situations and circumstances any more; there’s immunity to it now. The Mind reflects consciousness and sees itself.
The self can’t get rid of the consciousness or erase it, so it claims it. And in so doing the mind seemingly forgets what it is. That’s what the mind does. It seems to cause unconsciousness. What an incredible feat for the mind to do that!
Whatever the mind presents, just rest in the seeing of it. Don’t react. Then you’ll
have immunity to what the mind presents. Your reactions will change and life will be different. Because it’s your reaction that gives life its meaning. Life is “what’s happening.” But when it’s a mental reaction, it’s “what’s happening to me.” We are “what” is seeing, not the “who” that’s looking.
Self-centeredness is a failed program. You’re the projector of the thing called life. Then the meaning gets funneled through self-centeredness, looking at life as “how it pertains to me.”
What is possible is a moment of pause to allow another program to come in, one called a higher power. A response that does not produce a long list of problems.
Most of us are reacting to what’s not happening.
Your head may be in next Friday. Your body will be reacting as if next Friday is more important than today. Maybe you’re getting fired next Friday. You’re having a preemptive reaction to it, consumed with what’s not happening. Does it help? No. It overrides your ability to respond to what IS happening. All you need to entertain is What Is Happening — and phew! You’re back.
Huge mental catacombs can be erased in one second if you only acknowledge what IS happening — acknowledgment of the awareness itself.
To the head, not having a clue is very not-okay. It feels it has safety by knowing things.
Zen talks about this “not knowing” state. HERE is what’s going on. If your head doesn’t like it, so what? Break through that idea that nothing’s happening in the moment. There’s a lot happening! That, to me, is the relief of all reliefs.
You entertain you’re the doer; and when you entertain you’re the doer you can entertain being guilty and shameful about what you did and didn’t do.
When I was a kid my father used to play with me like fathers do. Then when I turned six he got sick, very sick, so he stopped playing with me. I am sure they sat me down, the older relatives, saying, “Listen Paul, your father is sick, that’s why he’s not playing with you.” Self-centeredness said I had to have had something to do with it. I had done something for my father to choose not to play with me. That is, bottom line, the only way I saw it. I was self centered, so everything was basically, somehow, always based on me; so his not playing with me had to do with me.
That’s what the mind entertains in self-centredness. You become the root cause of many things you have nothing to do with.
(Guilt, projection, and the pollution of self-centeredness)
All the guilt people are feeling and dumping on others is that guilt of separation they believe they must have caused. Why? Because that’s the only way self centeredness thinks. It sees everything as how it pertains to it. Based on something you did or didn’t do.
Now sit with that and see how unbearable that is. And what is the mind going to do with that unbearability? Dump it, project it, blame others! All these ways to get relief from its own pollution.
The selfing is one of the worst mental pollutants of all. The way it processes this place does not work. It produces so much refuse and garbage and then you meet another person, maybe someone who is your significant other, and that’s the place you think is the dump so you pull your truck up and dump.
“I’m looking for my prince, someone to share my life with.” You’re not even enjoying your life! Why would you want to bring another person into the mix?
Seriously. Someone to entertain me in my prison cell. You have this incredible home entertainment center; but it’s still a prison.
The mental process keeps representing the limited possibilities, and the captivated mind is like a marathon runner running laps in a little four by four foot closet. It’s just unbelievable.
If everything is being entertained from the self of the mental process that’s entertaining ‘you’ all day — that’s truly enslavement.
The mind is constantly entertaining this (‘you’) and as such it is entertaining very limited possibilities. You know it! In such entertaining, the possibility of being okay here is always, ‘Okay, ‘I’ will be okay’. In such entertaining, being okay is always based on time and what you do or don’t do or what somebody else does or doesn’t do. The possibility of being saved is based on a seeming bondage. When what we are waiting for fails to deliver satisfaction the mind produces excuses, rationales, and blame. The mental process has to cover up the fact that it’s inadequate in bringing you what you are looking for. Which…
You know it! In such entertaining, the possibility of being okay here is always, ‘Okay, ‘I’ will be okay’. In such entertaining, being okay is always based on time and what you do or don’t do or what somebody else does or doesn’t do. The possibility of being saved is based on a seeming bondage. When what we are waiting for fails to deliver satisfaction the mind produces excuses, rationales, and blame. The mental process has to cover up the fact that it’s inadequate in bringing you what you are looking for. Which is what? Peace of mind! It cannot bring you peace because peace is inherently in the Mind — but not when it is agitated and identified with the mental process.
So, we are trying to find peace of mind by discovering the source of agitation to the mind when…
You can’t get there as a seeker. See, that’s the selfing. You are identified as something that you’re not. What gives value to the journey? The real value (consciousness) can’t be entertained by the self so there has to be the pot of gold at the end of the spiritual rainbow. Then there’s doing and having as that is the only modality the self knows. It seems spirit as an experience it can have. The prior nature has seemingly been overridden by this insinuated nature. The mind cannot entertain THAT as you because you are already busily entertaining THIS (the body) as you…
(Already awake — the curse of seeking and the first knot)
You say you want to be “awake.” But while you are adsorbed in the story of self you will be unconscious to the fact that you are ALREADY AWAKE. Then you may have the curse of thinking you want to BECOME awake. Reinforcing the idea that you are not awake, so on and so on. The head is playing God. And it’s already beat you, since now it’s got you thinking you’re not awake. It’s going to play with that for years. The true happening is awareness; and that’s always happening. The relief you are seeking is always available. You don’t have to go into therapy, work on your fears and phobias, no; just realize you’re not that which needs to be therapized. When you wake from the dream there’s an instant recognition: It’s a dream-tiger. The dream is not happening. In most cases your anxieties are a product of what’s not happening. See it as a line of knots. You read books and go to therapists. But if you…
The true happening is awareness; and that’s always happening. The relief you are seeking is always available. You don’t have to go into therapy, work on your fears and phobias, no; just realize you’re not that which needs to be therapized. When you wake from the dream there’s an instant recognition: It’s a dream-tiger. The dream is not happening. In most cases your anxieties are a product of what’s not happening. See it as a line of knots. You read books and go to therapists. But if you undo the first knot, the misidentification with what is not, it loosens all the other knots. You’ll travel lighter. You’ll just know; they’ll be an unspoken “yes.” You can recognize consciousness through the presence of awareness.
There’s no escaping WHAT’S SO. You can SENSE living or else you can THINK about…
We are trapped into believing we ARE A THING. There’s the dilemma: The act of…
You don’t need a map to go to the truth. You are the truth! Consciousness is inherently available to us. That’s it. That’s the way. Truth is available at all times, but it’s not available to WHAT YOU’RE NOT. What you’re not will never access it, it’s impossible. Your head believes you’re what you’re not and causes you to be unconscious of the consciousness. But there’s no you that’s going through the door, because there is no you. The idea of being a you creates the idea of a door to the truth that’s always…
The curse of “spiritual seeking” may take you on a journey to become conscious of consciousness? How’s that going to work? Any time self gets revealed not to be you, it will regroup. Even if there’s a great epiphany, self takes credit for it. Blown into bits, self forms again. The head will arise and say, “I had this great experience.” Neutering the whole point of the epiphany: A message of life unadorned by self. Now you have epiphanies to put on your spiritual resume. Antlers on the mantle. Moving right up there. Suppose you notice you’ve been on a train of thought. That noticing is the pause. Stay in the pause! There’s no need to react to the thought. If you notice the thought’s not “yours” you’ll stay in the pause and not react. Not beholden to it. The pause is the field. The NO THING that interfaces. The universal subjectivity that’s looking through us. Whatever the mind presents, just rest in what’s seeing it and you’ll have immunity to what the mind presents. Your reactions will change and life will be totally different, because it’s your reaction that gives it meaning. Life is “what’s happening.” When it’s a reaction, it’s “what’s happening to me.” The “you” represents a lot of old ideas. Thousands of files of built-in conditioning --- the idea this is happening TO Paul. The files are…
Paul’s reaction to this conditioned state and all that arises is met with a reaction from an artificial state instead of a sense of the consciousness of the moment. I get an interpretation of the moment, from the point of view…
The knowledge of not knowing a freakin’ thing — that sets you free. Not having a clue. No idea. Like a vast infinite field right behind the noggin. Not knowing what’s flying in and going out. That state of unknowing is the space.
It isn’t about, “Now I’ve got to live in the state of unknowing.” No. It doesn’t matter if you worry about next week or not. Just find out who is it that’s worrying! Instead of dealing with all its effects, let’s go to the root of it and see if you’re that. If you’re not that, I tell you, your interest will be freed from it, to go other places. Maybe to harvest love and peace rather than fear and resentment and the need to be right.
Instead of dealing with all its effects, let’s go to the root of it and see if you’re that. If you’re not that, I tell you, your interest will be freed from it, to go other places. Maybe to harvest love and peace rather than fear and resentment and the need to be right.
I’m saying, the dilemma that you’re in is linked into being the long-lasting independent separate entity.
(No self was ever there — realizing you’re not in it)
A sense of being HERE provides an immunity to the “mental here.” You don’t get rid of the self. Because it was never there. You sense the appearance of a mental construct called selfing. But self was never there. There is no self. No reason to get rid of it. That’s the solution! The selfing infers, assumes, implies, and swears. All empty pointing to “the imagined one.” The mind through identification leaps from the pointing to the pointed. The bondage of self.
“All right, so where is this ‘you’?” You ask subjective questions. “Who am I? What is this life? If I’m not the doer of this life, whose is it anyway?” Sit there, pause, see what happens, yeah? The deck may be shuffled. But there’s no “getting rid of it.” The best way to get out of it is to realize you’re not in it. This place is a dualistic trap. That’s how the split mind works, comparing opposites. We try to decide where we fit in to that. Problem, solution. Again, again. That’s the slavery here. You want out of the problem? Entertain this idea: You were never in the problem. The bigger problem is being bound to self’s reactions to life rather than living. The act of identifying keeps the bondage intact. Then the revelation: I’m not that. Then when you take a look at self’s expressions they don’t have a hold on you! The obsessing stops. Learn about self from the point of view of being free of it, not continuing to obsess. You can be fearless about self. Because it’s not you!
Selfing is open ended, there’s no closure. If you deal with all your Earthly problems your mind will still make up a few on Mars.
Can you respond to this ability to be free? It’s available. The tight tunnel vision will open up. There’s a grand vista once the blinders come off. You’ll start breathing space and peace instead of fear and anxiety. Just now your lungs are contracted in the fear of impending doom. Totally coiled up. Once you start breathing this you’ll expand in a natural response to “what’s happening.”
(Energy given to life becomes response — the ocean revealed)
The energy given to self centeredness becomes a reaction. The energy given to life becomes a response. The energy given to self centeredness fuels a seeker, a getter, a proprietor, a privatizer. The energy given to “this” becomes an expresser, a dancer, an extender. Not taking, taking, taking. You live by giving it away. You don’t have anything so you don’t entertain losing it. You’ll intimate some of Nature’s qualities. This incessant on-ness. What was separated is put together. Like having a new set of glasses. A 3-D movie, with the glasses suddenly on. A sense of being alive. Consciousness; rather than being so enthralled with what I’m conscious of. Once you taste the relief, all you can do is laugh.
A lot of people simply want to be better, just as they are. They want to become A BETTER SELF. They don’t realize that the idea of being a self is what is causing the bondage; it’s not happening from an outside source. Self-centeredness binds you to things, and a meaning is given to those things so that they affect you. Circumstances don’t bind you; the self centeredness binds you to the circumstances.
This is “selfing.” If you do somehow get relief from outside situations you’re going to need to get even more relief from the outside situations, because the bonding agent isn’t on the outside, but the inside.
But in fact, the conscious contact is choiceless, simply what’s happening. An interpretation of the conscious contact includes the idea that it’s possible to be in it or out of it. Which is a lie. Your mind is just reacting. We forget that we ARE conscious contact; then there’s trouble, because life is no longer seen as what is simply happening, but is seen as what is happening TO ME. We call this normal everyday activity. But it’s just selfing. Selfing selfing selfing. I have opinions about this and that. I want what’s happening to that person over there instead of what’s happening to me. And so on. It’s an insane point of view. The more attention is absorbed by selfing the less I’m aware of the conscious contact. Less attentive, more prone to interpretation.
Your attention orbits around the planet Self all day, because the self provides the gravitational pull to all the thoughts, making them about YOU. If you realized they weren’t about the real you, they could simply come and go. Your attention would be freed up from the slavery of selfing and would attend to the conscious contact; there would be a recognition in and of itself. Traveling lighter — not by any procedures or practice, simply by recognition of what is so. You don’t add anything to it or subtract anything, just become conscious of it. You’re already that. If you recognize you’re not the self you will lose interest in all its activities, the processes that facilitate it. The reason I’m hooked on the narrative in my head is because I think it’s about me. By freeing the attention from the selfing we become aware of the conscious contact, the enslavement is over. Let’s simply entertain that we may not be the selfing. Then you’ll lose interest in obsessing with the thoughts, making up stories about the feelings you’re having or not having. The attention that’s glued to the screen of selfing will be released. Will go back to the conscious contact, each moment’s raw experience.
Get a better self? When will that be delivered? Never now. Always put off. “When I arrive there, it will all be great.” And when you arrive? The happiness doesn…
Solution: Look at a situation and see no problem. Only what is now. Being-ness. With that recognition comes immunity from becoming a noun. The real flavor of life, just happening — not happening “to me” — this is the open secret, the gateless gate. Available at all times. Realize you’re not in the problem. Never have been. That’s the solution. The…
Realize you’re not in the problem. Never have been. That’s the solution. The lie is that you were “in self.” But you never were. Your…
The lie is that there is someone that was in self, or out of self. There has never been anyone in, so how…
Self-centeredness leads to fear, since self-centeredness…
Faith in self produces the anxiety that you try to deal with as though the anxiety is real and solid. The same faith put into the infinite will create an ease and comfort. Travelling lighter. The mind tries to write its relevance into the story. But things are just happening. It has nothing to do with the self at all. The head’s interpretation is causing travel to be very heavy. All based on the idea of being a self. Self says it wants to “be free,” but true freedom is to be free OF IT: To be the…
You need a three-day retreat. Why? To have a story? “Now I’m a spiritual person.” Consciousness has become a commodity you trade, like stocks. Based on what we do as the “doer.” We make commerce of it. We sense that we enlarge and contract. But how can a body ever become spiritual? It’s always going to become spiritual as a body. That defeats the whole purpose. If you are spirit, why is there any need to become spiritual? You already are! As a body it seems, “If I become spiritual, it will bring advantage. So let me try grafting some spirit onto me. I’ll listen to talks by the masters and do some study.” When you’re sensing the presence of yourself, that’s the absence of truth, literally. When…
If you believe you did something to get this you definitely believe you could do something to lose it. Or the other way around: “Well, I didn’t do enough today to feel it.” You’d be playing god all freakin’ day. Perhaps you have an epiphany: An event of life with the absence of self. You get the flavour of the moment, life-as-it-happens, and it startles the self into submission. The self goes down, goes to its corner, has some water thrown on it; but it’s soon back in the ring again, saying, “Oh! I HAD the experience, this epiphany!” It pulls out a victory from the jasws of defeat. Generally the epiphany ends when this selfing arises and interpretation begins. A couple of epiphanies like that and you’ll be a spiritual noun. Ha-ha! The epiphany is an event. Then there is the mind’s reaction to it. Claiming it. The mind says, “I, this long-lasting independent separate entity, just had this spiritual experience.” Yes? It just neutered the whole event by claiming it. The epiphany was not an experience you had, it was the absence of the selfing! The heavens open up. The mental process has been stunned into stopping. Did you make a reservation for it? Did you call up ahead of time? Put on the right music for the event? No. It just burst through, interrupting your linear story of life as a noun, your sense of being a historical action figure. And the epiphany can offer a glimpse outside the box — a portal between timeless and…
You are spirit. Your interface here is through a body. The body is…
You look through a telescope to see the stars and the stars seem to come closer. In the same way consciousness comes through the lenses of our senses to experience the world. Consciousness gets to see, feel, taste, touch this place. Talk about an amusement park! It’s a total surround experience. Consciousness is the subject moving through this object of the body. Then the object has a mental process in which it claims itself to be the subject. What an incredible responsibility to be burdened with! All that attention is like a giant spotlight and you just can’t handle it. It’s like when you were a kid investigating an insect with a magnifying glass. You don’t know the effect the sun has and you burn the poor little thing up. All you wanted to do was know it. And all you want to do is know “you” but you burn the head to death, because that attention magnified through the self-centeredness, the identification with self, is much too much for you. All day instead of having what life presents, your head re-presents it. You go over it and over it with all these assumed superpowers, such as, “It could have been different if this or that.” Those are like doors to hell. When you see the door and it says, “If only,” don’t go there! “I should have,” and, “I shouldn’t have.” You can get lost in there for a long time. The head re-presents your life as though you are a God that could change it. Doesn’t it? Why would you think about something that was unchangeable, with a feeling that you could change it by thinking about it? Why would your head dwell on something that was unchangeable unless it believed it had the power to change it? Contrary to all the evidence…
Not a freedom five years from now or when you graduate, but a freedom applicable each moment. You…
Thoughts are like corn kernels, and you’re the popcorn maker. There is heat and they begin to pop, and you become aware of them. For a while the thoughts are just what’s happening, like trains going by. Then you inject all this buttery goo, making it about YOU. That’s when things get sticky. Feelings and thoughts do not bring you any meaning. You are injecting them with meaning. How do you do that? By making it MY thought and MY feeling. You open up the thought or the feeling as though it BROUGHT you the meaning; though the meaning is already in the files, downloading through the me and my.
People who go to Hawaii come back with a tan. But I go on this train trip to what’s not happening. I go on mental trips and come back with anxiety, recrimination, and shame. The trip’s about ME and I have a great interest in it. Why? Because I’m identified with it all. The freedom comes when you lose interest in the dilemmas. How do you lose interest? By entertaining the simple message, “I’m not that.”
You simply witness what is. Something shows up, and after that something else. A thought or feeling comes into awareness, does its little acrobatic act, then the circus packs up and leaves. Then you’re conscious of the next event, and the next. It’s a very smooth clean way of living, yes? Very fluid.
The physical apparatus is reacting to that. Being stressed by living more than one day at a time. You worry about what you will be like 20 years from now. But you will have a whole different personality then. You are worrying for a complete stranger. You’re not going to be anything like what you are now. Are you what you were projecting yourself to be when you were a kid? You’re not that person.
(Consciousness as the station — witness, not passenger)
You can recognize when a journey to What’s Not Happening is underway. That recognition is your relief. The activity of trains is not to stay at the station; they come and go. They pick up passengers and they take them somewhere. But you are the central station, the awareness, through which the trains constantly come in and go out. In a while, if you don’t get engaged in the contents, you may become engaged in the CONTEXT — in the consciousness of what’s WITNESSING everything showing up — the station — instead of getting on the trains of thoughts and feelings being used by selfing to carry you away. When you’re identified as a long-lasting independent separate entity it makes you a passenger at that station. Your drive is to get on a train in the hope that it’s going to take you somewhere. You have hopes and expectations and conditional desires that society has built into you, with the hope of arriving somewhere by doing or having. Having two kids and a picket fence and so on. These trains will come and we get on them and we call them the journey of life. Sometimes the trains are locals to a heaven, and the next stop is to a hell, and it goes on like that.
So here we are at the station, which is consciousness — the sphere where experience is happening. Consciousness through this interface seemingly comes in contact with our world. By becoming conscious of thoughts a mental experience is formed that takes your attention and puts it into a realm of mind that no one else can go to: YOUR own realm of mind. Your own little What’s Not Happening.
The only true stated communication is being now.
Our state as the station, of being a witness, has seemingly been forgotten. This mind has forgotten its own nature and has become identified with the projection of a mental process that I call selfing because it’s a verb, not a noun. It’s not real. It only seems real by its sense of being continual. This sense of being a noun is that of being a passenger. The passenger is going to be totally affected by what train he gets on, or what train someone else gets on. I should not have gotten on that train.on. Selfing, selfing, selfing.
A lot comes with you when you get on that train. A lot of old ideas, a lot of beliefs; you are a catacomb of conditioning called the idea of being a self. And that gets downloaded on every little trip you take as a passenger. You give the trains all the meaning they have. I’ll judge the train, that it’s to blame that I didn’t get where I wanted to go. Everyone said it would get me where I’m going! Something must be deeply wrong with the train — or else with me. I can try to figure out which trains are the good ones, practice deciphering the hieroglyphics on the side of the trains so I can ascertain which ones might take me to heaven or to hell. That activity is hellish, so obsessed with trying to figure things out. There’s no lightness in that. Maybe I go looking for the Schedule of All Schedules! Maybe a really old one from a cave in the Himalayas that will tell me about all the trains, when they come in and where they go. Even so I’ll still be a passenger, without a sense of the true quality of my nature, which is awareness, the station. Being at the station is like a long pause. An eternal moment. There is no time in a pause. Your mind, when introduced to what’s obvious, has the ability to be convinced by its own recognition that this place is totally crazy and contrived, that it’s a dream. An active realization takes place. Because it’s so easy to see what’s not happening for what it is – What’s Not Happening!
So entertain a pause. You can live in that pause. That’s the station. It is a recognition of what’s obvious, here in the moment. The simple recognition that your mental experience is truly not happening on the level you think it is. Its reality is only seemingly so. That’s your release. Your relief.
The simple recognition that your mental experience is truly not happening on the level you think it is. Its reality is only seemingly so. That’s your release. Your relief.
A mind identified as a wave is in denial of the ocean. It’s that simple. All there is, is consciousness. All you are is THAT. That space in which everything appears, moment by moment streaming through.
But our minds become identified with appearances. The mind has become identified as the body. We’re like a bunch of waves looking at the other waves, totally consumed in a wave world of our own interpretation, when all there is is ocean. “That wave’s faster than I am. That wave is getting to the shore before me. I want to pick up the shells. I don’t want to break in Stinson Beach, I want to break in Hawaii.” There is a seeing that is available at all times. No matter what your head is telling you about what’s looking, underneath all that is pure seeing. All the time. Every moment. Seeing is not defined by your idea of what looking is, with all the opinions, pontificating, judgments and critiques of how you’re doing and not doing.
As Buddha said: When you feel, feel. When you taste, taste. When you touch, touch. When you smile, smile. When you think, think. This is conscious contact. The conditioned head acknowledges the conscious contact, consciousness moving through the body, then the head claims it: Paul is seeing; Paul is hearing. Paul tastes that burrito. The object has claimed the movement of subjectivity through it and now claims the expression of subjectivity as “mine.” This selfing is such a small mental process. Its whole claim to fame is being a body. From this appearance of the body it produces the effect of being a self. Like an intoxicant. Everything it entertains is entertained as the self, which limits what it can entertain. Everything is perceived as to how it pertains to me. In the process there is a denial of THAT — the ocean — though all that is, is that.
Everywhere cannot be recognized by a special somewhere. It’s impossible. It’s the recognition that you’re not this, the body, that affords you the vision of seeing from everywhere. Things that were confusing get very clear. “You” become irrelevant. Hallelujah. As a wave there is concern about where you’ll break. But as the ocean? Obviously not. Appearances change but the quality of ocean remains. Just a movement of mind called selfing. Appearing to be a self. When in fact nothing has changed.
The mind requires relevance. Always doing and having, to attain value for itself. When you were a kid you didn’t need to accrue value; it’s when you grew into selfing that you decided you had to make yourself into something.
So let’s say you find out the trouble is self. Do you sign up for the two-year course, “How to get over the obsession with self”? Wouldn’t that be obsession with self? Self can’t get out of self. How could a product of a mental process ever leave the mental process? How could a wave ever leave the ocean? It’s meant to arise and to depart. The question is, could you ever be a self? If you are not in, there is no need to get out.
Has the ocean ceased to be? No. You want fear to be removed? Remove what thinks it has the fear! How you remove it is to realize it was never there to begin with. What works for me is to realize I’m not a self. It gets me out of what I could never be in. Released from the need to seek a way out of it. It’s really incredible when you parachute into this moment. Just drop in and you’re totally here.
(Wave and ocean — the identity beneath all appearing)
Everyone here thinks they are an individual wave in the ocean. And of course we have our wave worries. “Who’s going to beat me to shore. I’ve got a lot of kelp in me, how did I get that? Did anyone see me from the beach? Am I a cresting wave or a droopy wave?” Attention and interest totally consumed with wave qualities. All those ideas of being a wave are produced by the mental process. The mental process is telling you how to be a wave. Re-presenting what it’s like to be a wave. What it was like to be a past wave. Definitely, what it’s like to be a future wave. All the while there is forgetfulness of the essence of every wave, which is the ocean.
Coming to a meeting as waves to discuss the topic of the ocean is in a deep sense hilarious. Because all you need to do – is nothing. All the doing is an activity of being a wave. The wave trying to grasp the essence of the ocean is only reaffirming its wave-ness. Defining the ocean as something I’m separate from, yet want to have an experience of.”
Which is self’s true security! It will adore the ocean as long as it can do that as a wave.
So we’re not discussing the qualities and depth of the ocean – only questioning, “Are you a wave?” If you realize you are not a wave – slap! – you’re immediately the ocean! Inherently you’re not a wave; you’re space expressing itself as appearances. You’re the ocean expressing itself as a wave.
There will be a sense of ocean while there is the appearance of a wave. They’re not exclusive. When the wave recognizes it’s the ocean that doesn’t stop it from appearing as a wave. The wave can continue to be wavelike; but now there is a sense of being the ocean. Allowing the wave to travel lighter. Actually enjoy its waveness. In the presence of the wetness, the immensity of the ocean, all the worries about being a wave become dismissed. You see the wave is a little bogus presentation.
People practice for years and have a lot of experiences of the ocean, but always AS a wave. We take ourselves to be this real solid wave and the ocean appears to have a quality we want. Waving and waving and waving. Seeing only appearances, taking this wave to be real. Living on the surface of the ocean as though there were only what was appearing there. So concerned with what is going to happen to me — an appearance.
A little dance on the infinity of the ocean. The mind is identified with this appearance called Paul. Totally engaged. It’s forgotten its nature of being an ocean.
But the wave is persistently established AS YOU. That’s the denial of the qualities of the ocean. You don’t see the wave as the deterrent. Not that you can’t get the ocean. You ARE the ocean.
I don’t care about the beauty of the ocean; I want to question the wave. If I’m not the wave – boom! I’m the ocean.
The special somewhere is trying to take on the qualities of Everywhere. You cannot take on the qualities of Everywhere as a special somewhere. You ARE the Everywhere. For the special somewhere to take on the qualities of…
What’s appearing seems so incredibly important. But what’s appearing is not incredibly important – not to the space. And if you’re truly THAT… Ha ha ha ha! To give all of that up for this (thumping the body) – it’s like that movie in which Nicholas Cage decides to give up being an angel in order to make it with Meg Ryan. (Probably to get divorced two years later.) What an insane arrogance of appearances! Like a freakin’ angel would give up its angelhood to come here, for that? The appearance thinking it’s so much cooler to be an appearance than all of THAT. Give…
The wave can have exquisite suffering. All those crazy ideas that you can entertain when you believe you are separate from the ocean. Believing love has to come from outside; that peace is something you can do and have, that you have to do something to get serenity. Talk about consumerism! We’ve become consumers ever since we became identified as this head. Seeking constantly. Consuming experiences. Believing the more…
All day meanwhile the wetness of the ocean is seeping through its little concept of being a wave. When the truth comes through, not to you but through you, it’s set down as a “spiritual experience.” A pause. Moment of respite. “Oh, what did I do for that to happen? I’ll go over what I did that feels so good.” You didn’t do anything! Your true nature seeped through, that’s all. Wetness becomes a commodity that dryness tries to find. Or sell. Or privatize. When it is our inherent nature to be wet! As your nature continues to seep through, the wave will dream itself out of the dream of being a wave and the ocean-ness will be more and more obvious. There will be more wetness in it. There is a subservience to the mental realm. The mind is re-presenting conscious contact as you being the one that’s conscious, which is causing a total experience of unconsciousness. Totally unconscious to the fact of ocean. All day, totally in the…
What do you need to do about it? Absolutely nothing. Just become awake to it. It’s really just getting disarmed in a sense, all your little mechanisms. Putting down the grasping.…
The little mind can claim the big mind. The big mind is just seeing. Always available at all times. No matter how much clinging, how much claiming you do, the one moment…
You don’t leave the ocean of being, become a noun, and have a different experience of life, as island life. There is no island! There is only being. Being is an uninterrupted verb. There is no island of noun to climb up on. There is only Being, conscious contact, present…
It works like this: There is an experience — conscious contact. Then the mind claims to be the one who HAD the experience — wrapping all the little stories together into a big story of being a SELF that claims those stories to imply its reality. This occurs because of identification AS the body. I seem to be looking through this body,…
(Experiential mode versus remembering mode)
There’s a neuroscientist I heard speak once. He said there is an ‘experiential self’ and a ‘remembering self.’ Now to me there is no ‘self’; so I refer to an ‘experiential mode’ and a ‘remembering mode.’ What is well-being and happiness for one mode is not for the other. Here’s the difference: The remembering mode is about what I’ve done and what I have, like the big game hunter with antlers over the mantle. I’m happy because I’ve done this and done that. In this remembering mode there is on-going judging and comparison to see how good or bad one’s doing. But the experiential mode doesn’t find happiness in the resume or the goals it’s attained. This mode is pure Being. Conscious contact. Its joy in life is in the process rather than the destination. The experiential doesn’t care about judging and comparing; it doesn’t have time for any of that because there’s no time for getting out of the experience and becoming an observer of it! There is in fact no time. When the remembering mind takes over and it’s totalling up to see how good and bad you are, it’s totally insane. It has its own agenda. You may think it’s working for you, but you’re actually working for it. It’s using your life to interpret life based on its own views. Its desire to be right is incredibly powerful, as is its desire to be special. Nor does it care “how” its special: A 10-year prison sentence can be just as special to it as buying a house in Pacific Heights.
What’s observing is not you. What’s observing is the conditioning. You’re looking through your mother’s eyes, your grandmother’s eyes, a teacher’s eyes, your friends’ eyes; not so much experiencing as thinking about the experiences afterwards. What does it mean? The mind gets into the story. You’re never out of life. But you separate yourself out, so that there is an event going on but you think it is happening TO YOU. That instead of proceeding THROUGH an event it’s happening TO you. Meanings are being inserted into life based on WHAT thinks it’s living it. Enslaved to thoughts? The mind is obsessed with the idea of being a self. And it doesn’t recognize: That’s the dilemma. Your attention orbits around the Planet of Self. The self provides the gravitational pull to all the thoughts, making them about YOU. If you realized they weren’t about the REAL you, they could simply come and go. Your attention would be freed up from the slavery of selfing and would attend to the conscious contact: A recognition of life in and of itself. You’d be travelling lighter — not by any procedures or practice but simply by recognition of what is not so. The reason I’m hooked on the narrative in my head is because I think it’s about me. By freeing up some of the attention from the selfing there is awareness of the conscious contact; then the enslavement is over. Once you recognize you’re not the self you will lose interest in all its activities. Simply by entertaining that the selfing is not “you.” You’ll lose interest in obsessing with the thoughts, making up stories about the feelings you’re having or not having. The attention that’s glued to the screen of selfing will be released; it will be available to the conscious contact — each moment’s experience. A sense of awareness will grow. That awareness is what we are.
When that “I am” is in place you can have an immunity to all the “I am nots.” Simple as that! Just an entertaining of the I am gives you recognition of what “is.” The I am becomes obvious through recognizing what you’re not. You think living is about something that has happened, or something that may happen. You think living is about having expectations, withholding yourself from this moment in favor of a mythical moment that will be better than this moment, because it seems like there’s nothing happening in this moment. From what point of view? From the point of view of the self as a noun! What else could this be called but slavery? Life is a verb — appearing every moment new. Always happening. Otherwise, it would be called “was-ing.” or “will-be-ing.” Selfing works wonders with this; you could “was” yourself into a great mythical past or “will-be” yourself into a hopeful (or fearful!) mythical future. But all of nothing’s happening. This mental process is an impotent waving of an imaginary wand.
In selfing life is happening TO you. Self has become such a strong reference point that everything that is happening is now happening TO you. That’s a huge interpretation, and when you interpret life you miss it. It’s impossible not to. You cannot corral a verb. You just go along with it. You don’t have to CHANGE the fact that you’re living totally in interpretation. Attend to the awareness; and that awareness will stop your attention from giving up to selfing. That whole production will move to the background; and the background, which is the awareness, will move to the foreground. The emphasis will shift. And you’ll travel lighter.
All the body-brain processes have been used by the mental process called selfing to facilitate the bondage of self (being a body). When you see you are not that which is being inferred and implied, you will lose interest in self. Thoughts will not be held as your thoughts; feelings will not be held as your feelings.
The MY connects it with the file system called Paul. Paul has a lot of files about life related to Paul. As soon as the thought becomes identified as MY thought the file system gets opened, pulling up old ideas and downloading them into the thought. The binding agent isn’t the thought; your claiming it is the binding agent.
If you lose interest in the idea that you are that planet then you will lose interest in the THOUGHTS ABOUT YOU as that planet --- releasing the thoughts from their gravitational orbit so that they can come and go, and they are freed, and so are you.
The self thinks it can know the truth because it plays the subject and makes truth the object. But that’s not what’s happening. The truth is all there is, and I’m seeing FROM it right now — but not as a Paul; that’s a story ABOUT the seeing. You know FROM the truth. Self loops everything back to itself in a loop of self reflection. You get absorbed in that because you think it’s you.
So there’s a stop, a pause, and you get a free sample. It will trick the selfing into submission for a second perhaps, and there will be a pause in the selfing.
Because selfing is a verb it can be stopped; you can throw a wrench into it.
(Consciousness is always on — be the verb, not the noun)
When you no longer pontificate about what’s happening, then you are in conscious contact, where the rubber meets the road. There is life, happening. I don’t know what happened yesterday, and I don’t care; the context of this day was enough. There was one thing that was always going on, which was the verbing of it. Always the sense of being. The sense of movement. Of presence. The generator of life humming in the background. We might say, awareness is you; but that’s stretching it. There’s just awareness. This whole act of sensing the being of it is the joy.
Someone will say, maybe you can help me get on to that awareness thing, maybe I’ll feel better. The lie is that you can ever be “off” the awareness. Consciousness is a constant state. It doesn’t have to get ready. It doesn’t take a vacation and come back. It’s always on. No entrance point, no exit point. You’re on the ride, there’s no getting off. Feel the energy. Be the verb. We’re trying to signal you, through the wall of the noun that you’re really a verb. That’s all that’s happening. Trying to tickle the verb through this shell of a noun. Do you want to be the thing that can be aware half the time, or do you want to be the awareness? You can’t serve two masters at the same time. Serving the one master frees you up to travel lighter. Serving the other master wants to exclude you by HAVING you, as a noun. You’re being taken over by the parasite. Of course you want relief! The stories aren’t you; but if you decide to believe they are your attention can be drawn into them. And you’re stuck.
The mind feels very safe in the idea you MIGHT be conscious one day. “When I do such and such then I, as the mind, will allow myself to feel how conscious I am.” But never now; it’s always put off. Because being conscious, NOW, would be the end of self. Self doesn’t exist. Only the process of living, the verb, exists. There is selfing, but there is no self. Selfing is not a problem; what is the problem is the illusion of being a self. Selfing will keep happening. The real solution is to recognize you’re not the self or the selfing; then all the perceptions of illusion can keep appearing and making an illusion – which you’re not falling for anymore! For without you there is no illusion. Illusions must be entertained…
Selfing says, I want to be the awareness. No you frickin’ don’t. You don’t want to be free. You just want to have a better self. Want everything to get better just as you are. The basic fact of living is the awareness of it. There is only consciousness. When we forget that we ARE conscious contact there’s trouble, because life is no longer experienced as what is simply happening, but as what is happening TO ME. Trying to get a solution? To what? To get out of self? Sounds like a natural response to a situation that’s unbearable. But the response is part and parcel of the…
All the thoughts that are happening in your head are a product of the system of self centeredness. Whatever has happened in your life, self takes advantage of it. Polishes it, cherishes it, makes it the basis of its story. No way it’s going to let loose of it. It receives whatever your life comes in contact with and takes advantage of it. You realize finally there is no need to be liberated. All that needs to be liberated is you, from the idea of being a noun. There is an event going on, you think…
Always seeking for 10 years or so, but formulated in self-centeredness. All to be a BETTER SELF: “I as Paul am going to do something and have something for Paul to be better.” That’s the only way I could think; I didn’t know any better. I couldn’t think outside the box, because if you THINK you’re still in the box. All the thinking I could entertain was defined by self-centeredness.
We are overwhelming what’s happening with what’s not happening. It’s amazing if you turn on to entertaining something that is true, what it can produce.
If you apply a solution to an imaginary problem (self) what can you expect? A lot of something’s going to happen, but it’s not going to be what you thought. If you apply a solution to an imaginary problem what you’re doing is verifying the reality of the problem. You are reality lending itself to what the mind takes itself to be so. What solution that you think you’ve found has lasted? None. How can a solution work on an imaginary problem? The true solution is recognizing its imaginary; that’s the quickest way out. To realize you’re not in it. You lose total interest finally in being “liberated,” because you realize there is no need to be liberated. All that needs to be liberated is your freedom from the idea of being a noun, from what you’re not. That’s it; that’s as far as liberation needs to go. That’s the whole solution. The recognition that I was never in what I thought I was in, and I was trying so hard to get out of it. I stopped; I was out of it by not trying to be out of it.
You see what you’re not from what you are. But you cannot see what you are from what you’re not. It’s impossible. That’s why you think you’re missing it; because you want to see “what is” from a special somewhere, which causes you to be blind to everywhere.
Let’s say I’m desiring to have a spiritual experience. A little taste of everywhere. But that’s like having a fish deciding to pour a glass of water on itself to experience being wet. “Oh, now I’m wet.” It’s already totally immersed in water! For it to want to experience being wet it has to believe it’s dry. It’s not about getting wet; it’s about recognizing what’s telling you you’re dry!
Seeking began in America in a big way about 40 years ago. I’m going to do and have myself into a spiritual condition in the hope of acquiring some advantage, AS ME.
(Subject and truth — the end of seeking)
If you, as a dualistic construct, take yourself to be the subject --- then the truth becomes an object to you.
The thing to do is to turn the light on it to see that all there is, is subject; there is no object called me as a subject. There’s just subjectivity. That’s the truth. Then enlightenment and all these goals become non-goals, because you realize there is nothing to seek. I am that which I’ve been looking for. Ding!
Blue belts, black belts. The self loves belts signifying that it’s gotten to a certain level. Any process is manna from heaven to the selfing. It gets to have something to do. All these movements of selfing, constantly, constantly.
So I did that. There seemed nobility in doing all that; but all the while the mind was feasting. Just making a new self, turning it into a spiritual self. Hours of sitting, going to Thailand, going to India, it was writing up a great new story. Because the old addict story was over, it had run its course, milked that dead cow for years. Now becoming a spiritual giant, whew! Milking that for all it’s worth.
What you call your escape is actually the prison. Every escape your mind is looking for is actually the act of being imprisoned. Imprisoned to that mind, that selfing, because you’re identified with what that selfing reflects: A self.
The ordinary is the greatest door. It’s the one you walk through and don’t give much meaning to. Something can shift. You can come out of self. Recognize the availability of presence. We’re not giving much meaning to all that is, though it is happening all the time. We’re giving tons of meaning to appearances that are going to come and go. But we don’t give any meaning to what is always so. That’s the beauty of it, it’s so ordinary and so contextual that we miss it. If something is shiny to the mind it will be used as a mirror to the self. This message you’re hearing today has no shine to it; you get nothing. You’re getting nothing. It disarms all of the importance the mind likes to have. It’s the greatest thing to receive –
The mind is like a crazy weatherman. Predicting storms every day. Telling you even if it’s sunny you can’t enjoy it because a big storm’s coming. Is that peace? A short bit of peace that precedes a longer term of storm? Is that what peace is? Peace is prior to that. Peace is not established by circumstances and situations.
Self has to conjure up a sense of reality out of essentially nothing. Because there is no reality to it. The show is based upon the true platform of reality which is conscious contact.
Consciousness is going through the doors of the senses and meeting itself here. The mental process then claims it: I am the one seeing, doing, etc. It’s my body. Conditional mind is the puppet theater. Claiming the demonstration of being here, the conscious contact, seeing, feeling, tasting, touching. Making it into “my seeing” and “my touching.”
You’ll see the solution by the problem’s absence. When that narration is dismissed you realize, “That’s what I was suffering from!” The narration about the journey is the heaviness. If there is a sense of what’s happening NOW you won’t be living in a house built upon the past. Once it gets erased on the blueprint level you’re living outdoors in a sense. Free ranging. No longer in a little conceptual tenement with the hallway of the past decorated with all your secrets and reasons why you’re not happy now. All the hopes of how you’ll be saved. The quality you can never have in that mental tenement. There is an immunity to all that advertising being presented. The greatest immunity is being here, the sense of conscious contact.