How I tried to shut down my Greatness today

Image from Lucy's album

I want to share with you three ways in which I tried to resist my natural greatness today.  I say ‘tried’ because, in fact, it is impossible to resist greatness.

All our monumental effort in resisting our greatness only makes the futility of it painfully obvious when we come out the other end.

The more we struggle, the more we invest in the many and varied ways in which we seek to live and protect our smallness, the more frustrated, unfulfilled and desperate we feel.

The more we pursue the limited goals that we have been conditioned to value (no matter how vehemently we try and rationalize and justify them), the more we discover how utterly unsatisfying they are. 

Oh, sure, they give us temporary relief and pleasure like chocolate or sex or an extreme sport or any other kind of distraction that we seek from the gnawing, relentless hunger for our natural greatness. 

But, like the first taste of chocolate or the first tremble of sexual pleasure, it is gone before you’ve been fully satisfied.  And no matter how many more bites you take, how many different types of chocolate you try, how many more times you have sex or how many more partners you have, the pleasure is always limited and its duration increasingly shorter. 

In economics, they refer to it as the Law of Diminishing Returns…

It’s not a natural law but one that has emerged from a culture of consumption, itself an unnatural phenomenon. 

What is natural is not consumption but the movement and transformation of energy – the natural process of equilibration, of keeping things in balance.  But more of this another time.

For now, I want to stay focused on the matter of trying to stop or resist our natural GREATNESS.  In particular, I’d like to share with you three ways in which I did this today!

My reason for sharing this with you is to show you how common and frequent this behavior is.  In fact, it is so pervasive, it has become our default state, *it* being *living in smallness*.

I hope it will help you reflect on the ways in which you attempt to restrict your GREATNESS in the vain attempt to protect your smallness!

Crazy, isn’t it!!!  Living our lives desperately trying to remain small when it could be so much easier and infinitely more satisfying and fun to live GREAT! 

Crazy yet understandable when you realize that you’re not the only one trying to do this.  Virtually everyone else is massively preoccupied doing the same – pathetically trying to protect our smallness! 

And it is for this very reason that we feel the need to protect ourselves at all. 

For if you feel SMALL AND SEPARATED in a wild ocean of other creatures, some of whom you perceive as equally small, others as smaller than you and yet others as frighteningly bigger than you, then you are going to feel the need to protect yourself.

And in this preoccupation of protecting your (small) self, you have taken on beliefs and behaviors that dishonor and attempt to resist your natural GREATNESS!

So, let me give you some concrete examples of how I (and I’m sure many of you) inadvertently try to resist our greatness because we're so futilely preoccupied with our smallness WITHOUT even realizing it (except perhaps after the event)!

[What is more, in protecting our smallness while refusing to allow our greatness, we encourage others to do the same.  A consequence of this is that we find it hard to see and allow the greatness of others!]

Hurrying

I was hurrying as I washed the dishes this morning.

Why was I hurrying?  

Because I felt there was something more important that I needed to do – some work on the internet. 

In my need to protect my smallness, I have learned to value some things more than others.  Work that I do with clients and other people online is more important to me than washing dishes. 

Why? 

Because that kind of work makes me feel valued, more important, more significant.  It gives me a very false sense of my greatness.  But it my true greatness that I really want to experience!

Would I be thinking this way if I was aware of my greatness?  If I was aware of the great, infinite life-force that permeates every part of my being and every bit of the universe?  The life-force that is equally used to wash dishes and write blog posts? 

Not being present

As I was doing the dishes, I was thinking of what I wanted to write today. 

Why was I doing this?

Because, clearly, being present in the washing of the dishes did not strike me as a means of connecting with my greatness! 

Had I been aware of the natural greatness that I am and that is present in every moment, that is NEVER not present, would I not have found in washing the dishes the fulfillment, love and joy that my greatness naturally holds?

Thinking I was limited by geographical distance

I was thinking of my ideal life in terms of where I would like to live and what I would like to do.  I thought about my desire to live in the UK for a number of reasons, one of which is that Australia is so far from much of the rest of the world. 

Had I been more aware that my natural greatness knows no limits and sees no boundaries, I would not have had that thought.  Instead, I would have freely allowed my desires to take flight, being less preoccupied with how things would happen (since my greatness takes care of all that).

Getting in the way of our natural Greatness

Clearly, these are not the only ways in which I get in the way of my own greatness.  There are many, many more.  I suspect that this is true for you also.

So, what do we do about it?

I find that contemplating on some of the essential truths of life is a great help.  As I’m naturally curious about things (we all are), I am drawn to asking questions.  Questions such as:

Where does my strength and energy to do anything come from?  The energy to move my fingers, type on this keyboard, sing, eat, walk?  Where or what is the source of that energy ultimately? 

It’s not the food we eat or the sunlight that shines on the earth.  They, if you like are secondary or tertiary sources of energy.  But what is the ultimate source?  And is it separate from me?  How can that be so?

I realize that the ultimate source of energy, whatever name we wish to give it, flows through me and is not separate from me. 

It is the ever-present, all-pervading GREATNESS that flows through me and that has assembled me into this form that I am.  And it has done that without my micromanaging it!

It breathes me. 

Without it, I do not exist and neither does it!

And it is this GREATNESS that I am always seeking to experience and express because in the evolution of the human being, this GREATNESS has been increasingly shrouded from us by our belief in smallness, in limitation and in impossibility!

We’ve taken on an ill-fitting garment which bears the label of our individual name.  A garment that is way too small for the infinite GREATNESS that we are!

And you cannot wear such an ill-fitting garment for too long without suffering great discomfort and deformity! 

So, it’s time to take it off!  It’s time for us, you and I, to step out of this ill-fitting garment that we wear and that we call Lucy or Deborah or John or David…

It’s time to allow the FREE and FULL expression of our GREATNESS because that is what we truly are! 

And living a life that is anything less will never satisfy.

It's really that simple

Image from Lucy's album

You don’t have to compete with anyone or anything.  In fact, it is against the natural laws of the universe to compete. 

What you do need to do, what you are naturally drawn and excited and thrilled to do is open your heart and let the natural joy and power of the universe flow through it. 

Let it lead you to your natural desires, to your natural calling, to your natural bliss. 

Along the way, it will use your mind and your body to perform just those things that need to be performed, to assemble together just those things that need to be assembled, to gather together just those people that need to be gathered and to be in those places that need to be visited. 

In actual fact, all the work is being done by the Spirit, the energy of Creation, the power of Infinite Nature. 

Do you think you could possibly breathe or speak or move even the tiniest muscle without this power? 

EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING is powered by this same energy, this same life force, this same love force, this same Spirit, this same God.  There is nothing beyond it and it is the substance of all things.

Your job, and this may be a blow to your ego, is to simply ALLOW this force to do its work by listening to its prompts, following its prompts and offering it no resistance through thought, belief, fear, anxiety, demand, judgment or doubt.

In this sense, you are truly an instrument of this wondrous force.  

However, and this is a BIG ‘however, you do have an important role to play.  It is a key role because without this input on your part, this wondrous force will remain as infinite POTENTIAL waiting to manifest.

Offer DESIRE as the point of attraction for this wondrous force.  Offer desire so that this infinite potential can be marshaled and directed to bring into being that which you desire. 

You only have to offer this desire once but it must be with all your heart.  Anything less delays or interrupts the work of this force with respect to what you desire.

You see, the force itself is unstoppable and will always be directed to something that offers it no resistance. When that which is feared is unopposed, when it is not resisted, when it is left unattended or not transformed, the force will be directed to that which is feared.  Consequently, that which you fear will be brought into being by the force.

When you have a desire that is clouded with fear, doubt, confusion, anger or anything else that tarnishes the purity of your desire, the force will be marshaled in one or more of these directions since there is no resistance in their path.  Or, put more accurately, there is only allowance in one or more of these directions.

Consider for a moment, things that you have given fleeting desire to and then forgotten about.  

Have you noticed that they have been manifested?  That is because, having forgotten them, you have laid no resistance in their way.  Consequently, the force has been directed to them without any interference or delay.

When you have a desire that is clouded with doubt, fear, anxiety, unworthiness or any such thing, you will have to find a way of making that desire pure and unclouded, just the way it was when you first had the desire.

Until then, the force will be dispersed in one or more of the directions signed by those thoughts, beliefs or feelings that cloud your desire.

It really is as simple as that.

My Three Priceless Reminders

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Believe it or not, there was a time when I could quite easily and rapidly free fall into the bottomless pit of despair or disappointment or frustration or rage…

During those times, a relentless cycle of thoughts and feelings would keep me helplessly trapped within its paralyzing grip. 

So consumed was I with my thoughts and feelings, I was completely oblivious of the fact that I was trapped and that I was cycling through the same disempowering state interminably.

Oh my, what a state that was! 

And all through it, I would be consumed with the injustices, the unkindness, the insensitivities, the bloody-mindedness, the arrogance, the callousness, the dishonesty, the insincerity, the ill-intent of the other party. 

I would be thinking and rethinking AND JUDGING for the thousandth and tenth time, what had been said, done, projected, alleged, not said, not done, not defended, not justified by the other party. 

I would be raging or despairing with my response at the time and feverishly rehearsing my better, more bold, more ‘I’ll show them!’ future response. 

Dialogues fueled by outrage or self-pity or condemnation or righteousness or fear would play in my mind almost unceasingly, only briefly leaving me alone if and when my attention was forcefully drawn elsewhere.

Needless to say, my responses to these troubling situations and events were never fulfilling and the outcomes that they generated were never satisfying.  On the contrary, they kept the ground fertile for future and almost inevitable conflict. 

Not all of these conflicts were overt and dramatic, out there in the open.  No, most, I would say, were of the stealthy type – understated, expressed often in silence, withdrawal, ignoring, avoidance, sulking, and a kind of saintly accedence. 

As you can imagine, none of these responses resulted in lasting peace. 

True, they did provide temporary relief and given the degree of mental and emotional (and physical – my stomach used to churn, I’d feel nauseous, throw up, be more prone to illness and injuries etc) turmoil I was in, the relief was vital, life-saving almost!

But, worst of all, despite all the mental, emotional and physical effort I would have invested in these situations/events, I never felt good about myself no matter how hard or how eloquently I defended my response while condemning the actions of the other party. 

Most of this prosecution and defense happened in my head, of course, though I would share some of its story with sympathetic friends. 

I kept telling the story over and over again as if repetition would make it -BECOME and FEEL true according to how I had construed it, of course. 

The thing is, it never FELT true although it may have sounded reasoned and convincing intellectually.

It was only when I took the time to observe and study the nature of the mind that I began to realize that in all these conflicts, these undesirable situations, these *injustices*,

·       I was the common link.  In other words, I was always present.  Without me, there was no story, no event, no disturbance, no turmoil

·       My thoughts and feelings, my outrage, disappointment, sense of injustice etc were learned and habitual, resulting from associations that I’d made from a long time ago, perhaps even while in my mother’s womb!

·       I was trying to protect a *me* that didn’t really exist in the way I believed it to be i.e. separate, finite, unchanging, condemned forever to its beliefs, habits of thoughts, words and actions

Whoa!  What a realization that was!  What liberation it offered! 

I knew I was onto a good thing.  I was going to continue to observe and study.  I was after PEACE, JOY and FREEDOM and I was going to find them and I did!

But it’s not over.  It’s an ongoing thing, a never-ending journey.  I am still discovering more and more about the mind, and experiencing greater peace, joy and freedom along the way.

Each time I experience a situation in which the old, disempowering habits of the mind arise yet again, I am better able to bring my mind into the light of truth, into its clear water mind state where its thoughts and behaviors are seen for what they truly are – passing clouds, mud that has been disturbed,

These thoughts, feelings, words, actions are not *ME*.  They arise in the field of consciousness but they are not *ME*.  They arise and, if I let them be, they just fall away. 

I do not attach to them nor avoid them.  I am no longer under their disempowering grip.  I simply see them as passing events and I let them pass. 

When we think and say, “This too shall pass”, often we miss the deeper truth underlying these words. 

It’s not that some mysterious, more powerful force, causes them to pass.  Rather, it’s we, you and I, who can and must choose to let them pass, seeing them as events, no more and no less than any other and which, when there is neither attachment to or avoidance from, will dissipate like clouds.

In other words, we ALWAYS have control over our response. 

Now, so many of us pay lip service to this idea, this assertion.  We will often readily say, ‘Oh yes, we can choose our response’. 

But as long as that response comes from a place of powerlessness, anger, frustration, indignation, retribution etc, in other words, as long as we respond from FEAR, we have not chosen FREELY.  Instead, we have merely responded from habit, from disempowering beliefs and associations also known as conditioning.

It is an unnatural response.

You need to understand that the response from fear is a self-protecting and separating response, reinforcing the ILLUSION of a separate, incomplete and un-whole self.

The response from peace, joy, power, freedom and love, on the other hand, is a natural response.  It is free, open, expansive and aligned with the TRUTH of a unified, complete, unconditioned and whole SELF in which there is no separation and no need for self-protection.

So, all that said, what are my Three, Priceless Reminders that help me quickly illuminate the habituated/conditioned mind and its beliefs, thoughts and behaviors with the pure light of Truth/Love?

My Three Priceless Reminders:

1.   This is an event/situation that my unnatural, conditioned, muddy water mind has construed as a result of long established beliefs and associations

2.   I am by nature Peaceful, Joyous, Powerful and Free

3.   When I respond from my natural state, I remain in the natural flow of Peace, Joy, Power and Freedom

How did I come up with these reminders that, by the way, I can apply to ANY situation? 

Through familiarization.  

And how did I familiarize myself with them?

By observing and studying my mind which I sometimes describe as the practice of meditation J

That’s right.  Not affirmation, not indoctrination, not acceptance of someone else’s realization or familiarization but MY OWN real-time observation. 

Wouldn’t you like to do the same?  I hope so J

Why don’t I do the things that I know are good for me? Part 2

Image from Lucy's album

In Part 1, I talked about

·       Limited goals and their limited benefits

·       The limitless goal of Self-Knowledge and its unlimited benefits

·       Our fundamental ignorance

·       Our ignorance about the fact that we are suffering using the analogy of drowning without knowing that we are drowning but nevertheless suffering the effects of oxygen deprivation (in an email to my mailing list).  You can join my mailing list here)

·       Intangibility, Ignorance and Delusion as our lived experiences and as obstacles to doing what we know is good for us

In Part 2, I would like to explore how we might realistically i.e. in do-able ways make the goal of Self-Knowledge a personal and highly desirable goal for ourselves and how we might go about accomplishing this goal.

I have often said, with equal humor and seriousness, that the people who seek my services as a mentor are those who realize they have suffered enough J

You see, so often it is only when we hit a crisis in life, be it the dreaded C or the loss of a loved one or the breakup of a relationship or the loss of a job or income or the loss of a purpose in life, that we are motivated to take serious action. 

Until then, when we hit the less extreme snags in life – the daily irritations in our relationships, the bouts of illness, physical discomfort or disabilities that we experience, the setbacks and disappointments that we encounter as we determinedly pursue our limited goals, we are impelled to seek limited, short-term ‘solutions’.

More often than not, these are not real solutions but short-term fixes, band aids that deal with the EFFECTS/SYMPTOMS of our problems rather than the CAUSES or should I say the singular CAUSE of our problems. 

Yes, I say CAUSE because all our suffering, all our problems are ultimately the result of the one cause, the mother of all apparent causes – our fundamental ignorance of who we truly are, our lack of SELF-KNOWLEDGE!

It’s only when it finally dawns on us that these short-term fixes do not prevent us from encountering the same sorts of problems again and again, throwing us into yet another turmoil or frustration or disappointment or crisis, that we consider the possibility of seeking a long term solution, a REAL solution.

And in the seeking of that real solution, we come to realize that there has only ever been one problem – the lack of self-knowledge, the ignorance of who we truly are, our ORIGINAL SIN if you like J

All other problems arise from this single, most fundamental cause – our fundamental ignorance of who and what we truly are.

Now, I realize that such a statement demands elaboration and explanation and if I were writing a book rather than a blog post, I would be providing them.  As it is, I am aware that my posts are already too lengthy for our increasingly short attention spans J. 

However, I dare say that what I’ve written so far, in Part 1 as well as several of my other posts, should give you plenty to chew on.  Certainly there are enough threads there to tie into my assertion that all our problems arise from our fundamental ignorance of who and what we truly are.

That said, perhaps it might help if I provided these key threads in dot points:

·       The belief that we are limited beings isolated as individuals in our bags of skin is a flawed belief

·       When, as science also shows us, we recognize the fact that at the most basic, fundamental level of the material world, matter is in fact non-physical, existing instead as waves of energy, then it becomes clear that the perceived boundaries between all objects, including people, are only apparent, not real

·       In other words, the energy fields that permeate and underlie all forms of physical and non-physical forms of existence are in fact of the one continuous energy field that some might describe as the Unified Field of consciousness

·       This makes the notions of duality and separation untenable

·       This reflects the notion of non-duality, of oneness, of the unified whole, of the all-encompassing as a reality and a certainty rather than a mere possibility

·       When we allow ourselves to enter into the experience of non-duality, of oneness, which we can do during meditation (or in some cases through ‘spontaneous’ realization), we will encounter this truth in a personal and irrefutable way

·       As we cultivate a deep, personal experience/knowledge of oneness, of non-duality, of non-separation, we realize that the limited goal of self-protection which is what preoccupies us all of our lives, is a disempowering goal because it does not recognize the simple fact that what I do has an impact on all else, whether (as I say in meditation practice) we see it or not, we know it or not, we feel it directly or not

·       In other words, I am not an individual, separate being but an INTERDEPENDENT being as the Buddhist teachings tell us or as the Buddhist monk and scholar, Thich Nhat Hanh describes it, we are INTERBEINGS

·       I, like all other forms of material existence, am and arise as a result of what is known in Buddhism as DEPENDENT ORIGINATION – I arise and exist as the result of many and various participatory elements such as the air, the cells of my body, the union of my parents, the plants that provide oxygen and food, the people that build the roads, houses and towns that I walk on and live in etc etc

·       When I have a deep and personal awareness of myself as an interdependent being, then my tendency to grasp at this thing called ‘I’, ‘Me’, and protect it over and above all else as a result of its fears and aversions and indulge it in its ceaseless cravings and attachments as a result of its limited view/belief of itself as ‘not enough’ or not ‘not good enough’ slowly begins to dissolve­

·       I begin to see others as very much a part of me, not separated from me and therefore ­­­­­a possible threat to me (can you see the implications of this in your daily relationships with your significant others as well as those people and things – including your various ‘medical conditions’-  that you have been conditioned to see as ‘other’, as ‘not me’, as ‘threats’, as ‘dangerous’, as ‘evil’?)

Now, .as a result of reading Part 1, someone asked me:

If we do not protect ourselves, if we do not make it our business to protect ourselves and those people and things and causes that we care for, how are we expected to survive in this world?

An excellent question! 

Here’s how I responded:

Firstly, how do you feel when you are preoccupied with protecting yourself, your interests, your causes, your possessions? 

(By ‘protecting yourself’, I mean the things that you typically do and acquire in order to safeguard your personal interests, eg your job, your children, your career, your status in your family and community, your possessions, your investments etc.  In other words, all the limited goals and their limited outcomes/benefits that you pursue and achieve)

Do you feel empowered?  Free?  Open?  Joyous?  At peace?  Inclusive?  Non-discriminating?  If so, how long does this last?  Is there a lingering fear that this is not going to be enough?  That sooner or later, more will be expected of you, whether by yourself or others?

If you're not entirely satisfied or comforted or encouraged by your answers, then perhaps it would be useful to ask: 

Well, what is the best alternative?

The best and most desirable alternative, I think you will agree, is to be able to feel empowered, free, open, non-discriminatory, peaceful, joyous, and inclusive.

So, what must we do?

Is it possible to achieve these states without having to protect ourselves?

Well, I think you will see from all that’s been said so far and from your own life experiences, that the limited goal of self-protection and all its fleetingly glamorous and enticing by-products don’t provide lasting and limitless benefits.

If we want lasting benefits, then we really need to keep our eye, our mind and heart on the true, meaningful and limitless goal, the goal of self-knowledge. 

How?

How do you set about accomplishing any goal? 

You give it a lot of thought, right?  You spend as much time immersing yourself in thoughts, ideas, things, people related to it, true?  You imagine all the benefits you will gain by accomplishing this goal and then you take whatever action you can in its direction.

The goal of self-knowledge requires a similar approach with far less effort!  Yes, I know, sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? 

The fact is, the harder you try, the less likely you are to succeed.  And the more preconceived ideas you have about it, the more obstacles you place in the path of your goal.  The key, therefore, is to immerse yourself in the experience. 

So, here’s what you do:

·       You consider whether this is a worthwhile goal 

·       You read or learn and reflect as much as you can about the benefits of such a goal and how these benefits come about

·       You read or learn and reflect as much as you can about why the limited goal of self-protection can never give you the lasting peace and joy and fulfillment that you so desire

·       You practice a little at a time allowing your mind to settle, to return to its natural state of peace, joy, freedom, limitlessness

·       You allow yourself to experience this natural, clear water mind state more and more

·       You engage in daily life more and more from this natural, clear water mind state

·       You experience for yourself the benefits of doing this

·       You make this your default state of engagement in lifeJ

The BEST ALTERNATIVE is to

·       Be fully present – which is your natural state

·       Act out of love, freedom, power, peace, joy and limitless possibility – all qualities of your true nature

If this is not how you are living your life, then the question to ask yourself is:

Do I want to?

And if you do, then you can and I have already pointed you in the direction of how J

If you want it, everything is possible.  Everything is within reach.  Everything is doable. 

If you want it J

What is the value of pure awareness?

Image from Lucy's album

What is the value of pure awareness?  Of seeing without the filters of experience, of history, biography, geography and all the other accumulated forms of ‘knowledge’ or information that is stored in our minds?

Imagine seeing something you have never seen before, something so out of your familiar life experiences. 

In the initial microseconds of ‘seeing’, you see without bias, without the pre-existing schemas in your mind that will almost immediately want to interpret this thing that you are seeing and impose some kind of meaning on it.

Until this kind of meaning is imposed, your conditioned mind will strive to locate the new data of what you see into one or more of its pre-existing schemas. 

But just consider for a moment, what it might be like in those few nanoseconds before your conscious mind is overpowered by the historical data of the unconscious mind. 

In those few seconds, there is pure perception.  Seeing without bias.  Seeing without interpretation.  Seeing with neither history nor projection into the future. 

This is the experience of direct perception.  In fact, this is the experience of seeing as being.  There is no distinction between observer and observed.

What on earth could be the value of this kind of perception, this kind of seeing without bias, this kind of non-duality?

Oh my goodness, if we would only give ourselves the chance, the freedom to experience it for ourselves!  Nothing that I might say could even begin to describe such an experience AND its ramifications.

But let me say it all the same, if only to stir up some desire in you to experience it for yourself.

Let me say first though, that this is something we aim for during our meditation practice. 

When I ask you to focus on your breathing, your natural breathing, it is the first step to seeing without bias. 

You see, what typically happens is that as soon as we bring our attention to our breathing, our conditioning kicks in.  We judge.  We judge our breath!

Think about that for a second. The craziness of it!

This breath of ours that has been breathing us all our lives without hardly any notice or care from us suddenly comes under our scrutiny.  And oh boy, had it better pay attention to what I think of it!

Because you see, it is not an unbiased, non-judging scrutiny.  Oh no!  It is packed solid with judgment. 

My breathing is too shallow.  It is too fast.  It is too slow.  It is only going through one nostril.  My nose is blocked.  My chest is blocked. Oh no, there is something wrong with me. 

And it doesn’t stop there.  Instead, the mind races on in its usual neurotic fashion:

They say that you only have a set number of breaths in your lifetime.  If I continue breathing at this pace, I’ll run out of my quota very quickly.  I’ll die.  I don’t want to die.  I’m not ready to die.  I’ve got my kids to look after.  I still want to do so many things.  I haven’t even begun to really enjoy my life because I’ve been working so hard.  This is not fair.  Why do the good die young and the bad seem to live forever?  Life is not fair. Yes, that’s a given but why should it be that way?  Why don’t I have what I deserve?  Because you’re selfish.  I’m not selfish.  I do my best for everyone.  I always put others first.  Who puts me first?  No one…

At this point, you might perhaps remember to return to your focus to your breath J.  Or you might happen to hear my voice reminding you that it is normal for the mind to wander away from its assigned point of focus and that your job is to return it to its point of focus as soon as you notice it has wandered.

I might likely say that it may be several minutes and after several movies of the past and future that have played on your mind screen before you notice that your mind has wandered.  That’s normal, I say.  Just bring your mind gently, compassionately, with a big smile back to your breath.

How many people actually hear me say this? J. 

Most are still entangled in their personal movies where they take the starring role or in their neurotic thoughts convinced that this is not an opportunity to be missed in trying to resolve some issue that they’ve been grappling with! 

So caught up are they in their harsh, unforgiving judgments of themselves, of others, of life.  So absorbed in their self-defense.  So embroiled in their pitiful regrets and their righteous determinations about what should or should not have happened in the past or what should or should not happen in the future.

Just bring your mind back to your breath, I say.  Do not chastise yourself for not being able to keep your mind unwaveringly on its object of focus.  Just note: Ah mind, you’ve wandered.  Come back to the breath.

But how many people actually hear me say this?

My guidance has long ceased to register in their conscious mind J

Right after meditation practice, when I go around the group and ask how you’ve gone, some will say:

Oh, it was lovely.  I felt really relaxed.

Hmm…but did I ask you to relax and do nothing else?  Were there instructions that I gave that you perhaps did not hear and therefore did not follow? J

Others might say:

Oh, it was hard.  I couldn’t get my mind to stop.  I was very distracted.  I was so restless.

Ah…at which point did I ask you to get your mind to stop?  At which point did I say that you should not be distracted or restless?

The judgment never ceases.  The implied self-rebuke continues.

Who ever talked about distraction?  It’s not a word I use.  I say ‘wandered’.  Why?  It is not a judging word.  Or at least it is less of a judgment and more of an observation. 

The mind was on the breath.  Now it has wandered from the breath to something else.  Let’s just bring it back to the breath.  End of story.  No further investment is required in that event.  No judgment, no rebuke, no regret, no anxiety, no anger.  No disappointment.  No sense of failure.  Just a simple matter of noticing and resetting the focus.  Noticing and resetting.  Noticing and resetting.

[Now here’s the benefit of practicing this.  You can apply it to any event or experience in life, in what you call ‘real’ life J.  Something happens.  You observe.  You make no judgments.  You merely choose a point of focus – something that is life-giving (like the breath) J. 

Perhaps you could focus on being at peace in just this moment.  Never mind the history that led to this point.  Never mind the projections into the future.  Just this moment, let me be at peace.

Or focus on a beautiful thought: I am a channel of love.  Just for this moment, focus on that. 

Or focus literally on your breath.  Just this breath.  In.  Out.  Yes, and another.  In.  Out.  Yes, and another.

In the process, you break the pattern of conditioned thinking, speaking and behavior.  Instead of getting angry, you get peaceful.  Instead of lashing out with harsh words, you become aware of your breathing.  Instead of getting fearful, you see yourself as a channel of love…you get my point]

And I say:  Even if you have to do this 500 times in 5 minutes, that’s 500 times more aware you are.  That is 500 times you’re breaking long entrenched habits of conditioning. That is the practice.  Nothing more. 

But most people cannot accept this.

There must be something more.  There must be something more expected of me.  Simply noticing how distracted I am is not something to be rewarded.  Okay, I’m not being rewarded or excused.  No, that’s not the purpose of meditation.  That can’t be the purpose of meditation.  It has a far greater goal.  It must be to stop my mind from thinking. I am expected to do something better than this.  I expect it of myself…

What is better than this?  Never losing focus from your breath?  How will this help you? 

I am not saying it won’t but how do YOU think it will help you?

Do you know?  If not, why are you pursuing this goal?  HOW did you acquire this goal?  Who suggested it to you? 

There is nothing expected of you.  Nothing at all.  You are offered a method, a technique.  It is offered to you so that you can experience the benefits of it.  This is not a test.  This is not yet another way to demonstrate to yourself what a failure you are, that even watching your breath for 5 minutes is beyond you!

This is a way of helping you notice the NATURE OF YOUR MIND.

Everything that you experience in your practice is a reflection of the nature of your conditioned mind and if you are able to sustain your focus for just long enough, you will observe the nature of your CONDITIONED mind. 

And if you stay fully focused long enough, or sometimes for just one breath, you will experience the nature of your UNCONDITIONED mind!

Your conditioned mind judges, daydreams, fears, attaches, avoids, gets anxious, worries…

The practice gives you a chance to see this happening. 

Until you see it happening, you only know this as an intellectual proposition.  Even when you retrospectively consider a time when you were angry or anxious or judgmental, you can only encounter that as an intellectual experience. 

Unless of course you allow yourself to relive the memory of it.  Then you are IN IT without being aware of being in it. 

That is what happens during your meditation practice.  Your mind wanders and becomes embroiled in one drama/movie of your life or another.  But you have lost awareness of your mind.

However, when you are able to maintain your focus, when you are able to be an observer, you’ll see these thoughts and emotions and images arise in your mind and then, because you have neither attached to them nor avoided them, they will fall away.  Like clouds gathering and dispersing.  Again and again and again.

That’s when you are in your clear water mind state.  Consciousness aware of itself.  Self-awareness. 

You are in that dynamic field of consciousness.  You, as a solid bodied individual with your personal history and geography and biology no longer exist in the way you have been conditioned to see it other than as a concept. 

Instead, you, as the infinite, unseparated, eternal, boundless, unified field of consciousness become visible.  You are aware of yourself as who and what you truly are – infinite, eternal, limitless, free, powerful, peaceful and blissful.

That is the benefit of Self-Awareness.

You realize you are not a flawed, trapped victim, a creature of habit, personality traits and circumstances, an accumulation and reflection of your past, an isolated individual condemned to protect itself, destined to die.

No, oh no!

You are the eternal, infinite, creative, boundless, free, peaceful, joyous unified energy field of love in which all things are.  The entire world is in you.  The kingdom of god is in you!

There is no death of this YOU, THIS SELF.  Neither has there been birth.  You have always been.  Not as a separated entity but as a whole, unified, peaceful, powerful, abundant, joyous, eternally streaming being!  Get a grip on that!

Start imagining what life would be if you lived it from this YOU – the UNCONDITIONED YOU – instead of the conditioned you.  Can you even begin to feel the enormity of this?  The liberation?  The bliss?  The creativity?  The power?  The wholeness?  The deathless?  The timeless? 

Whoa…. J

Now seriously consider what your life would be like lived from this UNCONDITIONED YOU. 

And when you have done that, resolve to ALLOWING yourself to experience this unconditioned you. 

Note, I said ‘ALLOWING’.  Not forcing or expecting or demanding or obsessively pursuing it.  No, you will never realize the reality and truth of that which you can only hold as a concept and therefore think you can pursue or force into awareness. 

Pursue a concept and you will experience a concept NOT the thing which the concept describes or attempts to describe.  A concept is NOT the (means to a ) direct, unmediated experience.  

The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon.

Instead, simple allow the mind to return to its original state, its UNCONDITIONED state. 

How?  Give it a point of focus.  And watch it.  The focus keeps you from identifying with its behavior and its countless objects of focus.  The watching helps you bring it back to its point of focus. 

In the process, you cannot help but become aware of its conditioned nature.

In the process, you cannot help but become aware of its UNconditioned nature.

In both, you experience liberation, pure love, pure peace, pure joy, pure power, pure limitlessness, pure eternity J

Go practice J