Some Random Pointers

Awareness is inseparable from phenomena and phenomena are inseparable from awareness - they are different aspects of Being.

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There is no need to change anything that arises. Take refuge in Awareness. Awareness is always present. Rest there.

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Regardless of what is happening, we are what Sees it. We can either rest as the Seeing or we can attempt to change, modify, argue, flee, accept, etc. - all ways of avoiding what we are. Relax and leave everything alone. Quit trying to create sculptures from clouds. One path leads to more and more entanglement and suffering; the other leads to more space and freedom. Another way of saying this is that we can either live as Velcro or Teflon.

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When we can just rest, just relax with everything exactly as it is in this moment, we bring suffering to an end. The spaciousness in which all of this arises and plays out is Love. What we are is Love.

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Jesus said (paraphrasing), 'Don't build your house on sand.' Most of us haven't really taken that to heart. From one perspective, the 'sands' he spoke of are the ever-changing phenomena of moment-by-moment experience that are constantly shifting, changing, and reshaping. Paradoxically, the most solid, most stable foundation for our lives is this complete spaciousness, this fertile emptiness that is without height, weight, width, depth, color, or mass in and as which everything arises. Yet, this is the very building material that is indestructible and is the foundation of everything with height, weight, width, depth, color, and mass. Our treasure lies in this warm womb of Emptiness, not in the world of form.

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Don't make too much of this. In my experience, at least, there is no everlasting exalted state. All states, regardless of their character, are impermanent. What we are is the unknowable Seeing of all states. Rest as that.

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Awareness cannot be 'accomplished.' There is no practice that can take you 'there.' What you are is what sees the striving, the frustration, the clarity. You are already It. It's just a matter of acknowledging what is already so.

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Just relax. Regardless of what you are thinking, feeling, or sensing - leave it alone and relax. Rest. Rest as what you already are - it will teach you everything.

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Take a look - is Awareness/Knowing ever not present now?

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You don't need to change anything. You don't need to 'figure' anything out. You can just leave yourself alone, relax, drop the story (disregard the voice you hear narrating your life), and give all of it Space. You are this Space and Space is about as bothered by what arises within it as the sky is bothered by lightning.

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Every thought, every emotion, every sensation - when we forget that we are the Seeing of them - becomes like a tiny room with a very tiny window through which we attempt describe and function in the world. As we relax as the Knowing of emotion, thought, and sensation, we realize that we were never really caught in the tiny room (there is no room!) - we just thought we were, and that made it so in our experience, but not in Truth.

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We can't hold on to Awareness, just like we can't grab a handful of water. If you have ever tried to float, you know the harder you try, the quicker you sink! Instead, when you lean back, relax, and allow, you find that the water floats you. The same is true with what you really are - Awareness. Start by resting back, relaxing, and you will find you have never been separate from or other than the very thing for which you search - it is the 'water' being you!

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Not Two

There is not KNOWINGNESS and the OBJECT of knowingness.

SEEING and SEEN arise together.

Has there ever been SEEING without AWARENESS of the SEEN?
Has there ever been HEARING without AWARENESS of the HEARD?
Has there ever been THINKING without AWARENESS of the THOUGHT?

Do you see what the seeming multiplicity share?

Awareness is the seeing and the seen.
Awareness is the hearing and the heard.
Awareness is the thinking and the thought.

Not two.

When In Doubt

If you are going to read this as theory, as something 'interesting,' do yourself a favor and go to another website.

I don't intend this to be mean or exclusive. What I am saying is that if you are just reading this out of interest, you won't find it that interesting. If you are reading this as theory, you will be bored with its simplicity. If you are reading this with the idea that 'someday' you will 'get it' and for now you just want to take in as much information about 'it' as you can, give up. If you are reading this and willing to DO what it suggests, keep reading.

Right now, in THIS very moment, notice...
Sounds
Bodily sensations
Sights
Smells
Thoughts

What is KNOWING those things?

WHATEVER just came to mind - What SEES that?
And the flurry of thoughts that just occurred, what KNOWS that?
IT cannot be named.
IT cannot be seen, heard, felt, tasted, smelled or conceptualized.
Rest as that.
A million times identified as sound, sensation, sight, odor, thought...and a million times just rest.

When in doubt, read this again.

The Futile Attempt to Change What Is Already Changing

There has never been any emotion, any thought, any sensation, any situation, that has remained the same. Never. Look into your own direct experience right now - this isn't some grand, esoteric teaching. Whatever you were thinking, feeling, or sensing when you began reading this paragraph has changed by now. That incessant, effervescing flow is happening all the time - bubbling, frothing, flowing and never staying the same. Notice, too, that the awareness - the Seeing - of these phenomena, has NOT changed. Experiences are just like the images appearing on the television screen; they are in constant motion, but the space of the screen doesn't change.

Regardless of what is happening, we can either be caught in phenomena and attempt to modify or change what is already constantly changing, or we can just rest, relax, and leave everything alone. Awareness is inseparable from thought/emotion/sensation and thought/emotion/sensation is inseparable from Awareness. It is one and the same. Focusing on trying to modify what is constantly modifying leads to more and more entanglement and suffering; no longer efforting reveals space and freedom already complete and whole. Awareness is always present - it IS presence - YOU are presence. Just rest there; and when you doubt that you are doing it right, rest there.

You are OK.
Everything is OK.
Really.
See for yourself.
Rest.

Let Your Senses Point You Home

I am sitting on my porch on a sleepy summer afternoon here in
Springfield. I close my eyes and listen to the house wrens and
cardinals calling to one another. Now and then my dog, Shadow, barks at
a biker or another dog barking in the distance. A truck rumbles by on
the street at the end of the block. I feel warmth and tingling in my
feet, especially the arches. The bumpy wicker chair's arm presses
against my elbow and the computer heats my lap. Jenna, my neighbor,
walks out of her house while talking on the cell phone, opens her car
door, puts a bag on the seat, closes the door, and returns to her house
still talking. Two flies chase each other around the bird feeders. The
soft breeze moves the branches of the sycamore. A circular saw whines
down the block. Patterns of light and shadow wander over the green wood
of the porch floor. My stomach tenses thinking of some nebulous worry.
The sun shines on a spider's web between bricks and porch railing,
turning it into crystal. A thought of my cat, Pumpkin, who died Friday,
forms and dissolves. Another thought that my mother will die someday,
too, forms and dissolves. The red arm of the thermometer registers 82.
Bushes waiting to be planted lean against one another at the end of the
drive. The thought 'I see all of this' forms and dissolves. Now more
birds. Discomfort in the left elbow.

Is there someone
experiencing this? Look closely in your own experience right now.
Outside of the thought 'I am -----', are you? The thoughts, whether
they shout 'I am somebody' or 'I am nobody' or anything else, are just
like the wrens - flying back and forth through emptiness.

Allow
your senses to point you home. Come to your senses now. Listen. See.
Feel. Taste. Smell. Pick one sense. Notice everything arising as that
sense. Notice, too, the thoughts that arise simultaneously. The
thoughts just arise - there is no one 'deciding' to think them.
Thoughts are simply seen, too, just like the sense objects. Even the
thought 'I see them' is itself another thought and, upon direct
looking, is seen to refer to nothing other than this openknowingness .
Everything, absolutely everything, that has ever taken form (including
what we refer to as 'states')has arisen within this formless awareness.
What 'you' typically refer to as 'I' or 'me' has also always and only
taken shape within this same formless awareness.

At this very
moment, the reading, the computer, the sounds, the smells, the
thoughts, the sense of 'I' - everything - is forming and dissolving
within and as this Great Knowing Formlessness. You ARE this Great
Knowing Formlessness. Relax. Enjoy the birds.

Better Living Through Chemistry

The following is a letter from a reader (Tim) that addresses a fundamental misunderstanding. I hope this article helps to clarify it.

Tim: I never wrote to you before - read your blog occasionally.

One thing I'm surprised at though is the fact that you take anxiety meds - I would have expected realizing "the truth" would relieve emotional tension most of the time.

VF: Overall, there is less tension - much less. However, the “realization of truth” is always here and now - it never begins and it never stops and never ends - it is always fresh. There is no longer (this will be awkward, but I think you’ll get my point) the experience of an experiencer in this experience - Whew!

Tim: At the very least, I would say that like a spinning wheel coming to a stop, you will eventually not need it - what are your thoughts on this?

VF: I may or may not need it – no idea. Who is there to care? Don’t get too hung up on some idea of ‘realization’ and what happens or doesn’t happen because NOTHING HAPPENS! The body/life continues along as before AND it is totally different. Realization is seeing that there never was anyone here to ‘become realized.’ There is just this, now, here and no one to see it.

It’s interesting that this idea comes up, about the medication thing, isn’t it? Would you be surprised to know that I take a cholesterol-lowering medication? Would you expect that ‘after realization’ one should come to a point where it is eventually not needed? Notice the artificial division that is created. Thought does this all the time. Recognizing what you are at a fundamental level does not exempt the body from the need for food, water, air, shelter, warmth, etc. Same here – the brain is part of the body – an organ just like the liver or spleen – and it benefits a great deal from the anxiety medication (an antidepressant)… better living through chemistry!

Tim, you know, I think your phrase “spinning wheel” fits what I am trying to say: the experience used to be one of being the spokes and the wheel and feeling very ‘dizzy.’ Now, the spokes and wheel continue to spin, albeit somewhat more slowly most of the time, but it doesn’t matter because now I see that you and I and everyone else who ever took shape on this earth(and the earth, too) is also – and most fundamentally – the space in the middle of the spinning wheel and the space in which the wheel spins. Nonetheless, my ‘wheel’ has always been a bit 'out of balance' (just ask my wife) and the medication helps to create a much more pleasant experience.

I hope this is useful and I hope that anyone reading this who is ‘searching’ and struggling with depression or anxiety (or any other physical illness) will get the help they need – ‘you’ are already ‘realized’ anyway - 'you' just haven't 'realized' it! There are no extra points for agony.

Drop It All and Take a Walk - A Response to a Reader

Raj: I can feel or let me say, I know I am 'aware' only when I see things around (visible world). Without them I do not even know whether I am ‘present’ or 'aware' (like in deep sleep). So is it correct to say: my Awareness = the things around when I am in my wakeful state?

VF: Raj, you write “without [objects] I do not even know whether I am present or aware. So is it correct to say my awareness equals the things around me when I am in a wakeful state?” Who possesses this awareness referred to? What is this “I” that is or is not in a “wakeful state?”

Please look clearly at your question and see the misunderstanding at its core. Seeing that, the question dissolves. So, let me add a little solvent to see if we can hasten the process!

Is there an 'I' who is 'aware'? That is, on direct investigation, can a separate entity be found who is aware? Or, is there just IT/Awareness in and as which ALL objects - physical, mental, emotional, visible, aural, textured, and odorous - appear? There is never a 'you' present whether in deep sleep or waking or any other expression of consciousness. There is no separation between objects seemingly arising 'within' Awareness and Awareness. They are one and the same.

Everything is an expression of formlessness. Everything is an expression of IT. There is not a reciprocal relationship between objects and Awareness - for this to be so would require separation between the seeming object and a seeming witness. Even this seeming reciprocity is part of IT. THIS/IT is causeless. IT arises immediately-spontaneously-completely-at once!

Raj: The so called end of seeking is: this body-mind exists with all the sensations sort of smeared somewhere in the visible world without my consciously feeling “I-ness" and it feels like an effort to call the "I-ness" into attention?

VF: It is much simpler. The end of seeking is simply the recognition that the seeker is the sought. The end of seeking comes when the fiction of a separate someone who is looking for a special something is seen for what it is - a phantom, a shadow, a vanishing echo, a dream.

Is there seeking right now? Or, is there just looking at squiggles on the screen and thoughts arising? What is seeking other than more thinking, more story about something to be found? Drop it now! Finish this! What is sought will NEVER be uncovered with more thought – only more deeply buried.

Raj: Even in that non-existent "I-ness", this body is still separate and distinct sitting in this space (India) and Vince is another body sitting in another space (USA).

VF: Interesting story!
Find something that is not IT. Separate something from IT and send it to me. Is there anything not IT, including the story of a separate body here and a separate body sitting there? Raj, I-IT is looking through your eyes right now and you-IT are looking through mine. Where is the separation? Remember, the role of thought is to divide. The ability to divide has its uses, but a thought cannot know IT even though thought is an expression of IT.

Better yet, drop all of this, including my response, and take a walk. Listen to the birds, to the wind, smell the air, look at the open sky, feel the earth beneath your feet. Leave these considerations alone and rest. IT is Raj-ing, Raj. Just rest as IT (there really is no choice anyway) and then see if there are any questions or if there is just relief!

Be well.
Love,
Vince