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Once you realize that most of your thoughts are lies and not worthy guides, you lose interest in them.
“You can never get enough of what does not satisfy.”
You trust by just giving your attention to what is rather than to your ideas about what should be or what you would like to have happen or to trying to figure out what you will say and do ahead of time, which we do in hopes that there won’t be any surprises.
When there is no interest in thoughts, then knowing appears mysteriously from somewhere other than the mind.
When there is no longer any investment in things being a certain way, then you are totally free; you are free of suffering.
This not-knowing and sense of things not being fixed or static, is an indicator that you are in the Heart. Being in the Heart has a quality of being fresh and new in every moment.
As you surrender to not-knowing, you allow more space for this wise and knowing guide called the Heart to speak to you. It can show you more clearly than your thoughts, feelings, and desires what is really happening and what is true about your situation.
A desire is always concerned with the past or the future, and no fantasy of the past or future will ever satisfy.
It becomes obvious that desiring is the cause of suffering, not the absence of the desired object.
You don’t have to talk yourself out of wanting what you want; just experience wanting it, and that will set you free of that desire.
If you don’t fall for the lie that getting what you desire will make you happy, then it doesn’t matter if you get it or not. There’s a freedom in that, isn’t there?
if you give your attention to the object of longing and not to the experience of longing, you will suffer. But when you give yourself to the actual experience of longing, that longing opens up and quiets down, and you experience peace—the truth of your being.
Underneath the self-image, there is nothing! When you are finally willing to admit to the emptiness beneath your self-image, it is such a relief! It’s so real.
When we first land in this place of no self-image, it feels empty relative to the busy-ness and effort of identity formation, so we conclude that this can’t be the truth—it’s nothing. Besides, there is obviously nothing for “you” in this emptiness. So, we go back to our old ways—back to believing that our thoughts, feelings, and desires are who we are and that managing them correctly will make us happy. Many dip their toe in nothingness and freak out and run back to their more familiar reality. To the mind, even a lousy self-image can seem a lot better than nothing.
When you allow that emptiness and stay in it, it becomes full with a truer experience of the world.
Whatever is happening now registers right in the emptiness. Because your self-image is no longer monopolizing so much of your attention, your mind becomes more spacious and clear. You see everything more clearly.
Initially, staying in the truth means that your false identity has to dissolve, and that may not be pleasant. But if you are willing to stay there, then something else fills the emptiness, and that something is everything! You realize that everything is you: this and this and this and this.
To stay in that place of truth, you have to surrender all your thoughts, feelings, and desires. Any one of those will take you away from what is true. When you stay in that place of truth, there is no suffering. The truth might not always be what you want and it might not always feel good, but you won’t be suffering anymore.
The ultimate state is to become so transparent that everything that arises internally and everything that happens externally is met without any resistance or any holding on. Everything is allowed to be just the way it is without any judgment or effort to change it or hang on to it. Nothing is taken personally. Everything just flows easily from and through your being with nothing in the way, as if you were transparent.
Once you see that you are the whole, you lose interest in avoiding any experience or in having any particular experience. Whatever comes is fine, but there is no preference because you already are every experience.
The universe didn’t create this experience by mistake. It wants this experience. The whole universe shifted and changed so that this experience would arise. It’s just not your experience.
No matter how great your suffering is or how separate you feel from Presence, you are instantly back in Presence by just realizing that it is not you doing any of it.
So, then we just watch. Right. This watching or noticing is natural. I challenge you to shut it off: stop being aware right now! Is this that notices everything an experience or is it who you are? It’s who I am. Whether you are in an expanded state or not, is this that is hearing my words having fun? Yes. Even when the focus is very narrow, Awareness is having fun. It loves all of this. It loves the expanded experiences and the contracted ones. It’s having a blast. That’s what I mean about being more honest.
This ordinary, everyday okay-ness is like the bass note, or drone, in Indian music; it underlies everything. It is wonderfully humbling to find out that what you’ve been trying to find, you are already drowning in.
All of your wishes that this moment were different are lies because they aren’t the truth about what is right now. That is why desires generate suffering. Desires assume that something could be different than it is, which is telling yourself a terrible lie.
This being present is always here. I challenge you to actually leave the present. Where would you go? Where is this other place than now? Despite all your efforts, you have been a glorious failure at leaving the present, so you might as well surrender and pay attention to it.
There are basically two movements of consciousness: love and fear. Love is allowing what is and fear is resisting it. Those are the two possibilities in every moment.
The good news is that love does all the work, and you only have to be willing to meet fear and doubt when they arise. I’m not talking about surrendering to fear or doubt but being present to it and not so narrowly focused on it that you forget about the Love—this spacious allowing that even has room for fear.
The invitation is to find out what is left when you let go of knowing everything you think you know. Dive into knowing less than you have ever known—less than you knew when you were born. Once you surrender to never finding who you are, then who you are becomes obvious.
Then all that is left to do is pay attention; everything else is useless. This is that place of emptiness, where everything you thought you knew falls away.
I invite you to consider another possibility. It’s a strange possibility, but the results are wonderful, and that is to desire what is: meet what is with the same passion you may have had for what could be or what should be.
Gratitude is another word for this way of meeting what is in the moment. Gratitude is different than acceptance. Acceptance lacks passion and juice.
The other possibility is desiring what is wholeheartedly—truly saying yes to this moment exactly the way it is right now—bringing that kind of passion and aliveness to the way things are. This results in instant unlimited happiness because every desire for what is is always fulfilled!
to truly want what is, you have to give up the idea of being someone who can change what is.
The opportunity to meet whatever is arising with gratitude and to passionately desire it, is always available. You never run out of things to be grateful for.
Something interesting happens when you desire what is: you begin to desire what will be. You find yourself naturally wanting what is going to happen next anyway.
In desiring what is, you step into where it is going—you step into the flow, into this mysteriously unfolding, ever-new moment. This powerful force called desire can either cause all the suffering in the world or—when turned to right here...
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An event occurs, the conditioned reaction to it appears, and a complete enjoyment of both happens; so any possibility of suffering is immediately swallowed.
let your heart be broken open by everything that is present.
you just enjoy whatever the light of Awareness is shining on.
Rest at the source of both the good and bad feelings. When you rest, you automatically drop deeper than feelings.
Eventually, you begin to trust the Mystery and get used to the fact that it happens to feel uncomfortable and disorienting. You realize that whatever shows up is just right, even if it is sometimes uncomfortable or difficult.
The really good news is that surrender—allowing things to be as they are—is possible at any time.
You can do it right now. You can turn toward everything that is present right now and say yes to it.
If you don’t have any idea of how things are supposed to be, then there is no suffering, no tension—no sense of things not being right. What you are left with is this messy, beautiful thing called life, unfolding as it always has.
Life knows how to live. It has never had a formula, and it has done a perfectly good job up to now, but you only discover that when you stay right here.
I often use the word “resting” for that—letting everything be the way it is. How utterly simple, to let everything be the way it is!
Spiritual practice can be boiled down to two simple instructions. The first is to notice your experience and be curious about it.
What’s going on right now? Who or what is listening? Who or what is breathing? Who or what is thinking?
The second simple instruction is to know that whatever you are experiencing is the right experience and therefore to allow it—to surrender to it. This is what I’ve been calling resting.
