Pointing To The Moon

choosing from your heart is in harmony with the world

"Discernment is the clarity of choosing from your heart. All choices that flow with clarity from the heart are in harmony with not only your personal unfolding, but also the unfolding of the world. The mind tells us that this is not possible, that we as individuals must at times want things that the world does not. This is logic, and is founded on the idea that we are separate from each other. A unified diversity is the realization of the intimate fusion of the unity of the whole with its expression of diversity. It is the realization into being of each individual choice fitting perfectly with the whole." - Story Waters

the moment of awakening...an outburst of laughter

"The moment of awakening may be marked
by an outburst of laughter,
but this is not the laughter of someone
who has won the lottery or some kind of victory.
It is the laughter of one who,
after searching for something for a long time,
suddenly finds it in the pocket of his coat."
-Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Keys

direct experience

I don't normally include astrology here. This isn't about astrology per se:

"Sag is an inspiring fire sign, giving you the enthusiasm to convert others to your side or to take on the Great Books. Just be aware that any conventional course of study or travel plan will be upset by the planet of surprises and left turns. If you attempt to spread the Word, your message may come across as shocking or jarring ... or maybe you'll try to proselytize a familiar message, only to be disrupted by someone who challenges your belief system.

After all, Uranus is in Pisces. Sagittarius governs world religions, major schools of philosophy, higher education ... the Big Ideas. Sag[ittarius] trades in theories and opinions and belief systems, whereas Pisces chucks it all out the window and goes for direct experience of the Divine. What good are ideas, if they hold you back from connecting directly with the Source? You can talk and write about God, or you can just surrender to Him or Her.

Which would you choose?" - Jeffrey Kishner

there's only one. and that's the last story. - Bryon Katie

"Everything is equal. There is no this soul or that soul. There's only one. And that's the last story. There's only one. And not even that. It doesn't matter how you attempt to be disconnected, it's not a possibility. Any thought you believe that opposes this truth is an attempt to break the connection. But it's only an attempt; it can't be done. That's why it feels so uncomfortable." - Byron Katie

Lecture on Zen, by Alan Watts

"But if you really understand that Zen, that buddhist idea of enlightenment is not comprehended in the idea of the transcendental, neither is it comprehended in the idea of the ordinary. Not in terms with the infinite, not in terms with the finite. Not in terms of the eternal, not in terms of the temporal, because they're all concepts. So, let me say again, I am not talking about the ordering of ordinary everyday life in a reasonable and methodical way as being schoolteacherish, and saying 'if you were NICE people, that's what you would do.' For heaven's sake, don't be nice people. But the thing is, that unless you do have that basic framework of a certain kind of order, and a certain kind of discipline, the force of liberation will blow the world to pieces. It's too strong a current for the wire. So then, it's terribly important to see beyond ecstasy. Ecstasy here is the soft and lovable flesh, huggable and kissable, and that's very good. But beyond ecstasy are bones, what we call hard facts. Hard facts of everyday life, and incidentally, we shouldn't forget to mention the soft facts; there are many of them. But then the hard fact, it is what we mean, the world as seen in an ordinary, everyday state of consciousness. To find out that that is really no different from the world of supreme ecstasy, well, it's rather like this:

Let's suppose, as so often happens, you think of ecstasy as insight, as seeing light. There's a Zen poem which says

A sudden crash of thunder. The mind doors burst open,
and there sits the ordinary old man.

See? There's a sudden vision. Satori! Breaking! Wowee! And the doors of the mind are blown apart, and there sits the ordinary old man. It's just little you, you know? Lightning flashes, sparks shower. In one blink of your eyes, you've missed seeing. Why? Because here is the light. The light, the light, the light, every mystic in the world has 'seen the light.' That brilliant, blazing energy, brighter than a thousand suns, it is locked up in everything. Now imagine this. Imagine you're seeing it. Like you see aureoles around buddhas. Like you see the beatific vision at the end of Dante's 'Paradiso.' Vivid, vivid light, so bright that it is like the clear light of the void in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. It's beyond light, it's so bright. And you watch it receeding from you. And on the edges, like a great star, there becomes a rim of red. And beyond that, a rim of orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. You see this great mandela appearing this great sun, and beyond the violet, there's black. Black, like obsidian, not flat black, but transparent black, like lacquer. And again, blazing out of the black, as the _yang_ comes from the _yin_, more light. Going, going, going. And along with this light, there comes sound. There is a sound so tremendous with the white light that you can't hear it, so piercing that it seems to annihilate the ears. But then along with the colors, the sound goes down the scale in harmonic intervals, down, down, down, down, until it gets to a deep thundering base which is so vibrant that it turns into something solid, and you begin to get the similar spectrum of textures. Now all this time, you've been watching a kind of thing radiating out. 'But,' it says, 'you know, this isn't all I can do,' and the rays start dancing like this, and the sound starts waving, too, as it comes out, and the textures start varying themselves, and they say, well, you've been looking at this this as I've been describing it so far in a flat dimension. Let's add a third dimension; it's going to come right at you now. And meanwhile, it says, we're not going to just do like this, we're going to do little curlicues. And it says, 'well, that's just the beginning!' Making squares and turns, and then suddenly you see in all the little details that become so intense, that all kinds of little subfigures are contained in what you originally thought were the main figures, and the sound starts going all different, amazing complexities if sound all over the place, and this thing's going, going, going, and you think you're going to go out of your mind, when suddenly it turns into... Why, us, sitting around here." - a snippet from Lecture on Zen, by Alan Watts

i believe that the universe is one being - robinson jeffers

"I believe that the universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy, and they are all in communication with each other, therefore parts of one organic whole.  (This is physics, I believe, as well as religion.)  The parts change and pass, or die, people and races and rocks and stars; none of them seems to me important it itself, but only the whole.  The whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it, and to think of it as divine.  It seems to me that this whole alone is worthy of the deeper sort of love; and that there is peace, freedom, I might say a kind of salvation, in turning one's affections outward toward this one God, rather than inwards on one's self, or on humanity, or on human imaginations and abstractions ... the world of the spirits." - Robinson Jeffers

[except I'd say the outward is the inward too - the boundaries are arbitrary constructs if we immerse in whole]

only the Divine creating and expressing itself through life

"Everything is the Divine expressing itself as tree, as dog, as person, as thought, as emotion, as light, as sound. No boundaries. No one. Only One. Only the Divine creating and expressing itself through life." - Gina Lake, Radiance: Experiencing Divine Presence (book free online)

Ralph Waldo Emerson on the oversoul: whole, eternal, ONE, soul

"We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul." - The Over-Soul, from Essays: First Series, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1841

end the argument against your Holy Self

"I know, the psychotherapists say you must process and process and process. I say, “Enough!” The time for processing is over. It is time to give up the  struggle and end the argument against your Holy Self. You know what to do.  The answers are within you. I am here to remind you of that fact and I will  not back down and let you forget anymore. It is my job to help you awaken.  I am fulfilling my promise to you. I am here to show you the mirror of perfection.  I am perfect and so are you. There is nothing in God’s Kingdom but perfection.  Are you willing to finally see that, and only that? Am I really asking too  much of you, or are you asking too little of yourself? In the course I said,  “Accept your grandeur and let go of grandiosity.” You no longer need to puff  yourself up or try to convince yourself of your greatness. That is grandiosity.  Who you are is beyond such silly games. Turn over the king and walk away from the chessboard. You lost the ego game. Admit it and move on. You are an eternal winner at the Spirit game. You cannot lose the only game that has any meaning. You will now awaken from the game of life and start LIVING." - Lord Sananda (oversoul of Jesus the Christ)

brightness among innumerable islands of light

"Creation sometimes pours into the spiritual eye the radiance of Heaven: the green mountains that glimmer in a summer gloaming from the dusky yet bloomy east; the moon opening her golden eye, or walking in brightness among innumerable islands of light, not only thrill the optic nerve, but shed a mild, a grateful, an unearthly luster into the inmost spirits, and seem the interchanging twilight of that peaceful country, where there is no sorrow and no night." - Samuel Palmer

apollonious tyaneus: there is no death of anything except in appearance

"In his youth he [Apollonious Tyaneus, born 4 B.C.] was a marvel of mental power and personal beauty, and found his greatest  happiness in conversations with the disciples of Plato, Chrysippus and Aristotle. He ate nothing that had life, lived on fruits and the products of the earth; was an enthusiastic             admirer and follower of Pythagoras, and as such maintained  silence for five years. Wherever he went he reformed religious worship and performed wonderful acts. At feasts he astonished the guests by causing bread, fruits, vegetables and various dainties to appear at his bidding. Statues became animated with life, and bronze figures ' from their pedestals, took the position and performed the labors of servants. By the exercise of the same power dematerializaton occurred; gold and silver vessels, with their contents, disappeared; even the attendants vanished in an instant from sight.                    

"At Rome, Apollonius was accused of treason. Brought to examination, the accuser came forward, unfolded his roll on which the accusation had been written, and was astounded to find it a perfect blank.

"Meeting a funeral procession he said to the attendants, 'Set down the bier, and I will dry up the tears you are shedding for the maid.' He touched the young woman, uttered a few words, and the dead came to life. Being at Smyrna, a plague raged at Ephesus, and he was called thither. 'The journey must not be delayed,' he said, and had no sooner spoken the words than he was at Ephesus.                    

"When nearly one hundred years old, he was brought before the Emperor at Rome, accused of being an enchanter. He was taken to prison. While there he was asked when he would be at liberty? 'To-morrow, if it depends on the judge; this instant, if it depends on myself.' Saying this, he drew his leg out of the fetters, and said, 'You see the liberty I enjoy.' He then replaced it in the fetters.                    

"At the tribunal he was asked: 'Why do men call you a god?'                    

" 'Because,' said he, 'every man that is good is entitled to the appellation.'                    

" 'How could you foretell the plague at Ephesus?'                    

"He replied: 'By living on a lighter diet than other men.'                    

"His answers to these and other questions by his accusers exhibited such strength that the Emperor was much affected, and declared him acquitted of crime; but said he should detain him in order to hold a private conversation. He replied: You can detain my body, but not my soul; and, I will add,                    not even my body. Having uttered these words he vanished from the tribunal, and that same day met his friends at Puteoli, three days' journey from Rome.                    

"The writings of Apollonius show him to have been a man of learning, with a consummate knowledge of human nature, imbued with noble sentiments and the principles of a profound philosophy. In an epistle to Valerius he says:                    

"'There is no death of anything except in appearance; and so, also, there is no birth of anything except in appearance. That which passes over from essence into nature seems to be birth, and that which passes over from nature into essence seems, in like manner, to be death; though nothing really is originated, and nothing ever perishes; but only now comes into sight, and now vanishes. It appears by reason of the density of matter, and disappears by reason of the tenuity of essence; but is always the same, differing only in motion and condition.'                    

"The highest tribute paid to Apollonius was by the Emperor Titus. The philosopher having written to him, soon after his accession, counselling moderation in his government, Titus replied:                    

"'In my own name and in the name of my country I give you thanks, and will be mindful of those things. I have,  indeed, taken Jerusalem, but you have captured me.'" - via Blavatsky via Saints of Christo-Paganism, Esoteric Christianity

sunyata is dynamic Movement, an outpouring spiral dance of Love

ah, so many believe that enlightenment would be some sort of lobotomy, that our mind stills into a passive blank sterile state of no-thing. And that the peace that surpasses all understanding would yield a tedious dimension stripped of diversity and contrast, yet that is the furthest from the truth of this Edenic dance and hum of all Life coming to its essential awareness of its full aliveness...

"Bede draws on a quote from a great Zen teacher, Suzuki, in which he said that "Sunyata is not static but dynamic." So even in Buddhism, even in the great emptiness of sunyata, notes Bede, there is a movement, a tendency towards outpouring. "In the void there is a constant urge to differentiate itself. And the whole creation is the differentiation of the void...At the very moment of the differentiation it returns to itself. It is always coming out and returning." The void flows out in differentiation and simultaneously returns to the void. "That is why the Buddhists say that Nirvana and Samsara are the same," says Fr. Bede. "Ultimately they are one."" - Father Bede Griffiths, "Eastern Mysticism and Christian Faith", as recounted by Brian J. Pierce in Trinity, Creation and the Energy of Love

every moment is Fresh

Remember that every new second is a fresh start, for you are never chained by the past of ten seconds or ten years ago. - Vernon Howard

cut away all that binds you

"There is no failure in being human.  It does not matter if you waste your life, or you use your life appropriately, Whatever you are choosing to do is just fine.  There are no mistakes, there are no failures.  There is nothing you can do wrong.  The essences of wrong was given to you as a limitation; as was the frequency of death to limit you and bind you in fear. In the Orient they bind the feet. In some cultures they bind the head, in others they bind the heart. Cut away all things that bind you and  no longer serve you." - Gillian MacBeth-Louthan

awake! something is being given Freely, with no strings attached

Published in 2002, this quote feels truer every moment. My two cents: Two days before my awakening, I invoked Kuan Yin and asked the bodhisatva of compassion and mercy before I lay down to go to sleep to "give me whatever it took" (I was thinking in terms of 'wake up' situations or some cataclysm or "whatever it took") to awaken. The totality and earnestness (my teacher Adyashanti's favored word forr it) of that 'yes' was all that's really required in a free will universe.

"Until now only those seekers who had stepped away from the collective and traveled their own solitary path have had access to the consciousness of unity. The door to this quality of consciousness was only opened to individuals who had passed certain trials, who had faced the darkness of their shadow and purified their lower nature. The wonder of the present transition is that the collective is being given access to this next step in consciousness without having to make this laborious and painful inner journey. Now the doorway to unity stands open to the whole of humanity.

The work of the mystic is to make human beings aware of this possibility, to stand within the doorway of unity and welcome the collective inside. Most people do not even know that a consciousness beyond self-oriented individuality exists. They do not see the light that is streaming through, the wholeness that is beckoning them. The patterns of our collective conditioning have created a veil which blocks our awareness of what is being given. If we do not know what is being offered, we will not be able to fully participate in its magic, in its new way of being. We will not step through the doorway.

Even many spiritual seekers still think in terms of effort, of trials and tests. But there is no longer any key needed to open the door. It cannot now be closed.

This change is so simple and fundamental it is easy to overlook. It is not a problem to be solved. There is nothing to be learned, no steps to success. Something is being given freely, with no strings attached. All that is required is for each of us to say "yes."" - Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee, Working with Oneness

"Reality is that which..." - philip k. dick

Doesn't get more nutshell than this...

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” - Philip K. Dick, VALIS

Do not search for truth, only cease to cherish opinions

An oldie, but goodie:

The Hsin Hsin Ming
Verses on the Faith Mind
by Chien-chih Seng-ts'an, The 3rd Zen Patriarch, 606 A.D.

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.

When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.

When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

The Way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
Be serene in the oneness of things
and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.

When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity
your very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other,
you will never know Oneness.

Those who do not live in the single Way
fail in both activity and passivity,
assertion and denial.
To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality;
to assert the emptiness of things
is to miss their reality.

The more you talk and think about it,
the further astray you wander from the truth.
Stop talking and thinking
and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

To return to the root is to find the meaning,
but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.
At the moment of inner enlightenment,
there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness.
The changes that appear to occur in the empty world
we call real only because of our ignorance.
Do not search for the truth;
only cease to cherish opinions.

Do not remain in the dualistic state;
avoid such pursuits carefully.
If there is even a trace
of this and that, of right and wrong,
the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.
Although all dualities come from the One,
do not be attached even to this One.

When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,
nothing in the world can offend,
and when a thing can no longer offend,
it ceases to exist in the old way.

When no discriminating thoughts arise,
the old mind ceases to exist.
When thought objects vanish,
the thinking-subject vanishes,
and when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.

Things are objects because there is a subject or mind;
and the mind is a subject because there are objects.
Understand the relativity of these two
and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness.
In this Emptiness the two are indistinguishable
and each contains in itself the whole world.
If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine
you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.

To live in the Great Way
is neither easy nor difficult.
But those with limited views
are fearful and irresolute;
the faster they hurry, the slower they go.

Clinging cannot be limited;
even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment
is to go astray.
Just let things be in their own way
and there will be neither coming nor going.

Obey the nature of things
and you will walk freely and undisturbed.
When thought is in bondage the truth is hidden,
for everything is murky and unclear.
The burdensome practice of judging
brings annoyance and weariness.
What benefit can be derived
from distinctions and separations?

If you wish to move in the One Way
do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.
Indeed, to accept them fully
is identical with true Enlightenment.

The wise man strives to no goals
but the foolish man fetters himself.
There is one Dharma, not many;
distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant.
To seek Mind with discriminating mind
is the greatest of all mistakes.

Rest and unrest derive from illusion;
with enlightenment there is no liking and disliking.
All dualities come from ignorant inference.
They are like dreams of flowers in air:
foolish to try to grasp them.
Gain and loss, right and wrong;
such thoughts must finally be abolished at once.

If the eye never sleeps,
all dreams will naturally cease.
If the mind makes no discriminations,
the ten thousand things
are as they are, of single essence.

To understand the mystery of this One-essence
is to be released from all entanglements.
When all things are seen equally
the timeless Self-essence is reached.
No comparisons or analogies are possible
in this causeless, relationless state.
Consider motion in stillness
and stillness in motion;
both movement and stillness disappear.
When such dualities cease to exist
Oneness itself cannot exist.
To this ultimate finality
no law or description applies.

For the unified mind in accord with the Way
all self-centered striving ceases.
Doubts and irresolutions vanish
and life in true faith is possible.

With a single stroke we are freed from bondage;
nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing.
All is empty, clear, self-illuminating,
with no exertion of the mind's power.
Here thought, feeling, knowledge, and imagination are of no value.
In this world of Suchness
there is neither self nor other-than-self.

To come directly into harmony with this reality
just simply say when doubt arises, "Not two."
In this "not two" nothing is separate,
nothing is excluded.
No matter when or where,
enlightenment means entering this truth.
And this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space;
in it a single thought is ten thousand years.

Emptiness here, Emptiness there,
but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes.

Infinitely large and infinitely small;
no difference, for definitions have vanished
and no boundaries are seen.
So too with Being and non-Being.
Waste no time in doubts and arguments
that have nothing to do with this.

One thing, all things;
move among and intermingle,
without distinction.
To live in this realization
is to be without anxiety about nonperfection.
To live in this faith is the road to nonduality,
because the nondual is one with the trusting mind.

Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is

no yesterday

no tomorrow

no today.

Byron Katie's Awakening

I love this account from Byron Katie's website. I love The Work. I love Byron Katie. I love what is:

Less than two weeks after I entered the halfway house, my life changed completely. What follows is a very approximate account.

One morning I woke up. I had been sleeping on the floor as usual. Nothing special had happened the night before; I just opened my eyes. But I was seeing without concepts, without thoughts or an internal story. There was no me. It was as if something else had woken up. It opened its eyes. It was looking through Katie's eyes. And it was crisp, it was clear, it was new, it had never been here before. Everything was unrecognizable. And it was so delighted! Laughter welled up from the depths and just poured out. It breathed and was ecstasy. It was intoxicated with joy: totally greedy for everything. There was nothing separate, nothing unacceptable to it. Everything was its very own self. For the first time I — it — experienced the love of its own life. I — it —was amazed!

                  

In trying to be as accurate as possible, I am using the word “it” for this delighted, loving awareness, in which there was no me or world, and in which everything was included. There just isn't another way to say how completely new and fresh the awareness was. There was no I observing the “it.” There was nothing but the “it.” And even the realization of an “it” came later.

                  

Let me say this in a different way. A foot appeared; there was a cockroach crawling over it. It opened its eyes, and there was something on the foot; or there was something on the foot, and then it opened its eyes — I don't know the sequence, because there was no time in any of this. So, to put it in slow motion: it opened its eyes, looked down at the foot, a cockroach was crawling across the ankle, and … it was awake! It was born. And from then on, it's been observing. But there wasn't a subject or an object. It was — is — everything it saw. There's no separation in it, anywhere.

                  

All my rage, all the thoughts that had been troubling me, my whole world, the whole world, was gone. The only thing that existed was awareness. The foot and the cockroach weren't outside me; there was no outside or inside. It was all me. And I felt delight — absolute delight! There was nothing, and there was a whole world: walls and floor and ceiling and light and body, everything, in such fullness. But only what it could see: no more, no less.

                  

Then it stood up, and that was amazing. There was no thinking, no plan. It just stood up and walked to the bathroom. It walked straight to a mirror, and it locked onto the eyes of its own reflection, and it understood. And that was even deeper than the delight it had known before. It fell in love with that being in the mirror. It was as if the woman and the awareness of the woman had permanently merged. There were only the eyes, and a sense of absolute vastness, with no knowledge in it. It was as if I — she — had been shot through with electricity. It was like God giving itself life through the body of the woman — God so loving and bright, so vast — and yet she knew that it was herself. It made such a deep connection with her eyes. There was no meaning to it, just a nameless recognition that consumed her.

                  

Love is the best word I can find for it. It had been split apart, and now it was joined. There was it moving, and then it in the mirror, and then it joined as quickly as it had separated — it was all eyes. The eyes in the mirror were the eyes of it. And it gave itself back again , as it met again. And that gave it its identity, which I call love. As it looked in the mirror, the eyes — the depth of them— were all that was real, all that existed — prior to that, nothing. No eyes, no anything; even standing there, there was nothing. And then the eyes come out to give it what it is. People name things a wall, a ceiling, a foot, a hand. But it had no name for these things, because it's indivisible. And it's invisible. Until the eyes. Until the eyes. I remember tears of gratitude pouring down the cheeks as it looked at its own reflection. It stood there staring for I don't know how long.

                  

These were the first moments after I was born as it, or it as me. There was nothing left of Katie. There was literally not even a shred of memory of her — no past, no future, not even a present. And in that openness, such joy. “There's nothing sweeter than this,” I felt; “there is nothing but this. If you loved yourself more than anything you could imagine, you would give yourself this. A face. A hand. Breath. But that's not enough. A wall. A ceiling. A window. A bed. Light bulbs. Ooh! And this too! And this too! And this too!”

                  

All this took place beyond time. But when I put it into language, I have to backtrack and fill in. While I was lying on the floor, I understood that when I was asleep, prior to cockroach or foot, prior to any thoughts, prior to any world, there is nothing. In that instant, the four questions of The Work were born. I understood that no thought is true. The whole of inquiry was already present in that understanding. It was like closing a gate and hearing it click shut. It wasn't I who woke up: inquiry woke up. The two polarities, the left and right of things, the something/nothing of it all, woke up. Both sides were equal. I understood this in that first instant of no-time .

                  

So to say it again: As I was lying there in the awareness, as the awareness, the thought arose: It's a foot. And immediately I saw that it wasn't true, and that was the delight of it. I saw that it was all backward. It's not a foot; it's not a cockroach. It wasn't true, and yet there was a foot, there was a cockroach. It opened its eyes and saw a foot, and a cockroach crawling over the foot. But there was no name for these things. There were no separate words for foot or cockroach or wall or any of it. So it was looking at its entire body, looking at itself, with no name. Nothing was separate from it, nothing was outside it, it was all pulsing with life and delight, and it was all one unbroken experience. To separate that wholeness and see anything as outside itself, wasn't true. The foot existed, yet it wasn't a separate thing, and to call it a “foot,” or an anything, felt like a lie. It was absurd. And the laughter kept pouring out of me. I saw that cockroach and foot are names for joy, that there are no names for what appears as real now. This was the birth of awareness: thought reflecting back as itself, seeing itself as everything, surrounded by the vast ocean of its own laughter.

                  

When I try to explain how The Work was born in that instant of realization, I can analyze the instant, slow it down, and tell it so that it takes on time. But this is giving time to an instant that wasn't even an instant. In that no-time, everything was known and seen as nothing. It saw a foot, and it knew that it wasn't a foot, and it loved that it was. The first and second of the four questions is like the slow-motion mechanics of the experience. “It's a foot” — is that true? Can I absolutely know that it's true? No. What was it like before the thought of “foot” appeared, before there was the world of “foot”? Nothing.

                  

Then the third question: How do I react when I believe the thought? I was aware that there's always a contraction, that when I believe any thought I create a world separate from myself, an object that is apparently “out there,” and that the contraction is a form of suffering. And the fourth: Who would I be without that thought? I would be prior to thought, I would be — I am — peace, absolute joy. Then the turnaround: It's a foot / it's not a foot. Actually, all four questions were present in the first — Is it true? — and everything was already released in the instant that the first question was asked. The second, third, and fourth questions were embedded in the inquiry that was there in the experience. There were no words for any of the questions — they were not explicit, not thought, not experienced in time, but present as possibilities when I looked at my experience later and tried to make it available for people. With the fourth question the circle is complete. And then the turnaround is the grounding, the re-entry. There's nothing / there's something. And in that way people can be held without the terror of being nothing, without identity. The turnaround holds them until it's a comfortable place. And they realize that nowhere to go is really where they already are.

the truth that needs neither proof or belief

If your knowledge of fire has been turned
to certainty by words alone,
then seek to be cooked by the fire itself.
Don't abide in borrowed certainty.
There is no real certainty until you burn;
if you wish for this, sit down in the fire.

-Rumi (from Rumi:Daylight, by Camille and Kabir Helminski)

How the Tao Lives the Master

I had the honor of seeing a living Master from a front row seat this past Sunday. She knew of no spiritual classics, and had no spiritual resume when she awoke. "I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn't believe them, I didn't suffer, and that this is true for every human being... I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment. That joy is in everyone, always."

She had been a severely depressed businesswoman and mother living in Barstow, California. For the last two years before she "woke up to reality" she was often unable to leave her bedroom due to the spiralling thoughts of paranoia, self-loathing, and rage.

When people starting appearing at her door in 1986 after her awakening, they'd often bow and say "Namaste." She'd never heard the Hindu term "namaste"so she says, "I was thrilled that the people coming to my door were so wise." She believed they were saying, "no mistake."

Ah, yes, no mistake! No mistakes!

This is destined to be my favorite book of 2007. And seeing how it's February - I look forward to being wrong, because that would be one helluva book that'd top this one.

Her husband Stephen Mitchell writes in the preface: "In many chapters of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-Tzu describes himself through a figure called "the Master," the mature human being who has gone beyond wisdom and holiness to a world-including world-redeeming sanity. There's nothing mystical or lofty about the Master. He (or she) is simply someone who knows the difference between reality and his thoughts about reality. He may be a mechanic or a fifth-grade teacher or the president of a bank or a homeless person on the streets. He is just like everyone else, except that he no longer believes that in this moment things should be different than they are. Therefore in all circumstances he remains at ease in the world, is efficient without the slightest effort, keeps his lightness of heart whatever happens, and, without intending to, acts with kindness toward himself and everyone else. He is who you are once you meet your mind with understanding."

On page 256, Byron Katie says: "At the beginning, in 1986, I felt a lot of surprise that people were confused at what I was trying to express, that they believed that the separations they saw were real. This went on for about a year. I would cry a lot. It was like a dying. The tears were tears of amazement that people didn't understand that all suffering is imagined. I was moved by their innocence. It was like watching babies hurting themselves, like watching the innocent cut themselves with knives, with no possibility that they could stop. I didn't dare say, "This is unnecessary," because that would have ben just another dagger in them.

And always the tears were tears of wonder and gratitude. I remember the first time someone brought me a cup of tea, I just melted with the splendor of it all. I had never seen a cup of tea before. I didn't know that we did that here. The man poured the tea, and my eyes began to overflow like the tea he was pouring. It was so beautiful, and there was such generosity in it. I felt so much love that I could only die into it, and just keep dying. There was no way to contain it, it was so huge. The tea poured in, and act of pure kindness, and the tears poured out of me in the same measure, received and pouring back, giving back to itself, not to anyone or from anyone. And no one could understand why I was sobbing. They all thought I was sad. There was no way I could explain how moved I was, and that it was this gratitude that was pouring out of me. 

The Master has given up helping because she knows that there is no one to help. And since she loves and understands her own nature, she realizes that in every action she is serving herself and sitting at her own feet. So there is nothing she gives that she doesn't receive in the same motion, as the same internal experience. Even when she appears not to give, that is what she is giving. The Master is the woman who dented your car, the man who stepped in front of you on line at the supermarket, the old friend who accused you of being selfish and unkind. Do you love the Master yet? There's no peace until you do. This is your work, the only work, the work of the Master." - Byron Katie, A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are